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Trump takes aim at China at UN General Assembly

President Donald Trump lambasted China on the global stage, telling the United Nations General Assembly that China has "gamed" global trade as the two sides gear up for another round of talks to resolve their ongoing trade spat.

Trump, speaking in front of global leaders in New York at the annual summit, said Beijing has embraced an economic model that is dependent on massive market barriers, heavy state subsidies, forced technology transfers, and theft of intellectual property and trade secrets on a "grand scale," while taking aim at China's standing as a self-declared developing nation despite it being a global economic powerhouse.

"The second-largest economy in the world should not be permitted to declare itself a developing country in order to game the system at others' expense," Trump said. "For years these abuses ... were ignored, even encouraged."

Trump also defended his decision to place tariffs on more than $500 billion worth of imports from China as a way to confront what he called "unfair practices" that the Asian nation has adopted since its admittance to the World Trade Organization in 2001. He accused China of not liberalizing its economy in the time since, which he said has led to 60,000 U.S. factory closures and American job losses.

"The United States does not seek conflict with any other nation. But I will never fail to defend America's interests," Trump said.

The trade war between the U.S. and China began in July 2018 with 25% tariffs on $34 billion of Chinese goods. Beijing has been quick to retaliate with tariffs on U.S. goods, though it cannot match tariffs dollar-for-dollar since the U.S. imports more than four times as many goods from China than vice versa.

The latest U.S. tariffs on Chinese goods went into effect Sept. 1, primarily on about $125 billion worth of consumer goods. Another tranche is slated to go into effect Dec. 15, with that batch delayed to mitigate the pain on the U.S. holiday shopper. If that tranche goes into effect, nearly all goods imported by the U.S. from China will face additional tariffs.

Most recently, the Chinese delegation canceled a visit to meet with farmers in Montana following low-level talks in the U.S. last week. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said September 23 that U.S. officials canceled the visit due to time constraints, despite Trump's recent claims that Beijing committed to buying more U.S. agricultural goods that have been hard hit by retaliatory tariffs in the spat.

The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative also announced this month that more than 400 categories of Chinese goods, including certain types of chemicals, textiles and other industrial goods, would be exempt from tariffs.

The pointed comments come before top U.S. and Chinese negotiators are slated to meet for their 13th round of trade talks in Washington in early October.

Trump told the UN General Assembly that he "will not accept a bad deal" with China and that "we are all counting on [Chinese] President Xi [Jinping]."

Separately, Trump also told the General Assembly that he will meet with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on Sept. 25 at the General Assembly to continue progress on finalizing a "terrific" new trade deal with the Asian nation.