(CNBC) – President Donald Trump said Sunday he could declare the escalating U.S.-China trade war as a national emergency if he wanted to. “In many ways, this is an emergency,” Trump said at the G-7 leaders meeting of the ongoing trade battle between the world’s top two economies. “I could declare a national emergency, I think when they steal and take out and intellectual property theft anywhere from $300 billion to $500 billion a year and when we have a total loss of almost a trillion dollars a year for many years,” Trump said,
adding that he had no plan right now to call for a national emergency. “Actually we are getting along very well with China right now, we are talking. I think they want to make a deal much more than I do. I’m getting a lot of money in tariffs it’s coming in by the billions. We’ve never gotten 10 cents from China, so we will see what happens.” Trump’s comments come as he met with Britain’s Prime Minister Boris Johnson kicking off Group of 7 meetings in the French seaside town of Biarritz. READ MORE
