President Donald Trump said China deserved the steep tariffs he imposed on their exports and predicted Beijing could find a way to reduce their impact on American consumers.

“You don’t know whether or not China’s going to eat it. China probably will eat those tariffs,” Trump said Tuesday in an interview with ABC News. “China was making $1 trillion dollars a year. They were ripping us off like nobody has ever ripped us off. Almost every country in the world was ripping us off. They’re not doing that anymore.”

Trump said he did not believe hard times were ahead for U.S. consumers, while acknowledging that his 145% tariffs on many Chinese goods amounted to a near-embargo.

“That’s good,” Trump said. “They deserve it.”

The defiant remarks from Trump come just days after the Trump administration signaled it was looking to repair damaged trade relations with Beijing and convince Chinese officials to enter trade negotiations.

They also come as the tariffs’ early impacts on U.S. consumers begin to emerge. Chinese retail app Temu, popular for its bottom-barrel prices, already appears to be passing down most of Trump’s new import taxes to American shoppers.

And rival fast-fashion giant Shein Group Ltd. has raised the U.S. prices of some products ahead of imminent levies on small parcels, including an average rise of 51% for the top 100 products in its beauty and health category from last week, with several items more than doubling in price.

Last week, the Wall Street Journal reported that the U.S. would be willing to phase in lighter China tariffs over five years, with White House officials saying that relief was on the table. Trump told reporters then that China was “going to do fine” once talks settled and that he’d be willing to “substantially” pare back his levies.

Despite senior administration officials repeatedly predicting China would be forced to the negotiating table, talks have not commenced. Earlier Tuesday, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said China could lose 10 million jobs because of the tariffs — but declined to detail any specific negotiations underway between the two nations.

“I’m not going to get into the nitty-gritty again of who’s talking to whom, but as I said, I believe for the Chinese, these tariffs are unsustainable,” Bessent said.

Trump told ABC News Americans should not be surprised by his tariff regime, saying the levies were necessary to address trade deficits and revive domestic manufacturing.

“I said all of these things during my campaign,” Trump said. “I said, ‘You’re gonna have a transition period.’ We’ve been ripped off by every country all over the world.”

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