US President Donald Trump announced that “the United States wants to help China, not harm it,” in a conciliatory tone, days after threatening to impose an additional 100% tariff on Beijing.

Trump wrote on his social media platform “Truth Social”: “The United States wants to help China, not harm it,” adding, “I respect President Xi Jinping and do not want his country to suffer a recession.”

He added that he might resort to imposing additional tariffs on the world’s second-largest economy starting November 1, in response to what he called China’s new “very aggressive” restrictions on exports related to rare earth metals.

Meanwhile, US Trade Representative James J. Jirard said that “Washington contacted China to arrange a phone call after Beijing announced an expansion of its rare earth export restrictions, but China postponed the call.”

Jirard added today (Sunday): “I can tell you that we were not notified, and we quickly learned about it from public sources and contacted the Chinese for a phone call, but they postponed it.”

China had criticized the latest US tariffs imposed by Trump on Chinese goods and defended its restrictions on rare earth metal exports, but it did not go as far as imposing new tariffs on American products, while urging the US to manage disputes properly through dialogue based on mutual respect and equal consultations.