Now as negotiators scramble to resurrect the deal, revelations are emerging that indicated both sides appeared to have the other over a barrel. As a result, they are pushed for the purpose of a rapid escalation in tensions which is followed by a session of hard-fought negotiations.
On Wednesday, Vice President Liu He heads to Washington for US trade talks with Robert Lighthizer and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin.
"The escalation of trade friction is not in the interests of the people of the two countries and the people of the world," the Chinese Commerce Ministry said in a statement Wednesday.
On TwitterTrump accused Beijing of trying to run out of the clock on his administration in the aftermath of a Democratic administration after 2020. Speaking at a rally in Florida later Wednesday, Trump said the new tariffs were because China "broke the deal. "
"You see the tariffs we're doing?" the President asked his supporters. "Because they broke the deal!"
"The first vice is flying in tomorrow, but they broke the deal, they can not do that," he added. "If we do not make the deal, we'll never have that before."
When Liu, Lighthizer and Mnuchin sit down, however, they will not be engaging in handshakes and backslapping, but rather acrimonious negotiations pushed most of the way back to square one.
A deal may still result from those talks, but it will be a long time ago.
What happened?
In launching his trade war, he said that he would have been favored by Beijing.
To do so, it has been launched against the Chinese economy, massively ramping up tariffs on a wide variety of goods and industries. In response, China has imposed its own tariffs, hitting in particular US farmers.
Trump's strategy is based on the fact that China is the net seller in their trade relationship, Beijing will blink before Washington. The Chinese economy is also fundamentally more vulnerable than that of the US, and Chinese President Xi Jinping faces a host of political pressures that make a prolonged trade war difficult.
At first – a part of the US economy and the growth of agriculture – Trump's strategy to be paid off: He is forced to negotiate the table.
In April, Chinese state media reported that negotiators had "reached new consensus on such important issues as the text of the trade agreement," while the White House said technology transfer, non-tariff barriers, agriculture, services, purchasing, and enforcement,
That all changed with Trump's tweets on Sunday.
Crossed wires
Trump has a habit of making policy on Twitter, but his pronouncements on Sunday did not come from nowhere.
US officials told CNN that the most recent round of trade talks in Beijing, their Chinese counterparts sought to make significant changes to a prospective deal that the Americans felt were already wrapped up.
According to Reuters, a cable feels from Beijing to Washington late Friday included "edicts riddled with reversals by China that undermined core US demands." These reportedly included backtracking on the exchange rate and the exchange of secrets, competition policy, and currency manipulation.
Speaking to reporters on Monday, Mnuchin said there were "some signs" negotiations were "going substantially backwards," prompting him to update the President.
US officials said that Trump's tweets were meant to rattle Beijing, and were made without extensive discussions with his economic advisers.
What exactly is Beijing's broadside is unclear – a constant peril of dealing with such an opaque political system – but it seems to be based on a misinterpretation of statements and actions by Trump that he was concerned about the state of the US economy and would be willing to make concessions.
Last week, Trump ugly in the US Federal Reserve
on TwitterJerome Powell last year, while praising Chinese policy.
"China is adding its stimulus to its economy while at the same time." "Our Federal Reserve has incessantly lifted interest rates, even though inflation is very low, and we have instituted a very large dose of quantitative tightening. go up like a rocket if we did some lowering of rates, like one point, and some quantitative easing, "Trump said in a series
of tweets.
"Yes, we are doing very well at 3.2% GDP, but with our wonderfully low inflation, we could be setting major records (and) at the same time, make our National Debt start to look small!"
Beijing's perception of US weakness is likely to be caused by its own economic precedence, with solid first-quarter growth and renewed commitment to Xi's trademark Belt and Road Initiative, which was feted at a conference in the Chinese capital last month attended by dozens of world leaders .
Trump blink seems wildly miscalculated, however. Not only is the US economy not nearly as weak as some of Beijing appear to believe, this type of last minute renegotiation seems to be almost specifically designed to infuriate Trump.
The US President has already shown that they are willing to go to North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in North Korea.
That would be the answer to the question of trump except, it turns out, those in Beijing.
CNN's Kaitlan Collins, Nikki Carvajal, Kevin Liptak and Steven Jiang contributed reporting.
