The same week U.S. President Donald Trump announced sweeping increases on tariffs against Chinese goods, Chinese buyers dropped orders for 3,247 metric tonnes of U.S. pork - the biggest cancellation in more than a year, according to U.S. Department of Agriculture data released on Thursday.

China is running out of options to hit back at the United States without hurting its own interests, as Washington intensifies pressure on Beijing to correct trade imbalances in a challenge to China’s state-led economic model.

China and the United States have agreed to keep talking about their trade dispute, the Chinese government said on Tuesday, as U.S. President Donald Trump said he thought recent discussions in Beijing would be successful.

China on Monday said it would retaliate against the US by raising the tariff rates on thousands of American products, days after the US expanded duties on Chinese goods as trade negotiations stalled.

A yearlong trade war between the United States and China is proving to be an initial skirmish in an economic conflict that may persist for decades, as both countries battle for global dominance, stature and wealth.

Chinese consumers for the first time last year bought more Cadillacs than Americans did, helping drive profits at General Motors. And though the designs for those Cadillacs may have been drafted in Detroit, nearly all of the luxury automobiles were assembled in China by some of GM’s nearly 60,000 local workers.

The United States has escalated its trade war with China, hiking tariffs on $200 billion worth of Chinese exports hours after trade talks held in Washington failed to produce a breakthrough.

Trade talks seemed to be going well, but president alarmed markets with his tweets

President Donald Trump said Sunday that tariffs on $200 billion of Chinese goods will increase to 25% on May 3, despite repeated claims by the administration in recent weeks that trade talks with Beijing were going well.

China is considering delaying a trip by its top trade negotiators to Washington this week, according to people familiar with the matter, after U.S. President Donald Trump threatened the country with steeper tariffs over the pace of trade talks.