Donald Trump, who had been notably conciliatory with his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, since the start of his second term, posted a fiery message on Friday, October 10, on his Truth Social platform: threats of additional tariffs and the possible cancellation of the summit scheduled for late October in Asia – everything was on the table. "I was to meet President Xi in two weeks, at APEC [Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation], in South Korea, but now there seems to be no reason to do so," wrote Trump, adding, "One of the Policies that we are calculating at this moment is a massive increase of Tariffs on Chinese products coming into the United States of America."

That afternoon, Trump specified that he might impose an additional 100% tariff on Chinese imports and introduce controls on the use in China of certain advanced US-made software – a likely reference to software used in microprocessor design. The announcement triggered a sharp drop on Wall Street (down 2.7%), especially among tech stocks (down 3.56%). It revived fears of a return to escalation in the trade war between the world's two largest economies, reminiscent of the tensions that marked the spring.

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