President Trump's tariffs are set to go into effect at midnight, and at least for now — with roughly six hours to go — the White House appears poised to slap a triple-digit levy on China.
State of play: "Negotiations" has been the word of the day.
The White House has spent much of Tuesday touting the "massive amount of requests" for talks from the roughly 80 trading partners set to be hit with tariffs tonight.
So far the president has prioritized at least two countries for talks: Japan and South Korea.
🇨🇳 Friction point: Who hasn't called yet: the U.S.'s largest source of imports.
"China also wants to make a deal, badly, but they don't know how to get it started," Trump wrote this morning in a social media post. "We are waiting for their call."
That might be a while. As Axios' Rebecca Falconer reports, Beijing this morning issued a statement saying China "will fight until the end if the U.S. side is bent on going down the wrong path."
What we're watching: If and when tariffs go into effect tonight, the rate on most Chinese imports will be 104%.
