Picture split showing China's President Xi Jinping and President Donald Trump. (Pedro Pardo - Pool/Getty Images; Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
The president said his relationship with China over the past six months has been "very good" and called the crackdown on exports "surprising."
"I have always felt that they’ve been lying in wait, and now, as usual, I have been proven right!" he added.
The administration had suggested Trump may be open to meeting Xi at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation later this month in South Korea, but "now there seems to be no reason to do so," Trump said.
China over the past few decades has captured a dominant position over the rare earth minerals and magnets industry, and now uses its supply, needed for electronics across the world, as political leverage.
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"There is no way that China should be allowed to hold the World ‘captive,’ but that seems to have been their plan for quite some time, starting with the ‘Magnets’ and, other Elements that they have quietly amassed into somewhat of a Monopoly position, a rather sinister and hostile move, to say the least," Trump added.
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/trump-threatens-massive-china-tariffs-sees-no-reason-meet-xi