US President Donald Trump is prepared to quickly ramp up a trade war with China and has told aides he is ready to impose tariffs on $US200 billion ($A276 billion) more in Chinese imports as soon as a public comment period on the plan ends next week, Bloomberg News reports.
The White House declined comment on the Bloomberg report, which cited six unidentified sources, and deflated markets. The S&P hit session lows, and the US dollar, Chinese yuan and US Treasury yields also fell.
Trump has credited his electoral success to his hard line on trade, which he has argued hurts US workers and favours foreign competitors. Washington is demanding Beijing improve market access and intellectual property protections for US companies, cut industrial subsidies and slash a $US375 billion trade gap.
The world's two largest economies have already applied tariffs to $US50 billion of each other's goods in a tit-for-tat trade war. Talks aimed at easing tensions ended last week without major breakthroughs.
"So-called hardline, pressure-exerting methods of the US side won't work on China and are not helpful to resolving the problem," Chinese foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said on Friday when asked about the report.
China's position is to resolve the issue via pragmatic talks on an equal basis, which is what the international community wants to see, she added.
Washington's new proposed 25 per cent tariffs would affect consumer products including home building supplies, technology products, bicycles and apparel.
A public comment period on the proposal is set to end on September 6, and Trump plans to impose the tariffs after that deadline, Bloomberg said.
Some sources said Trump had not made his final decision, the Bloomberg report said. Trump administration officials have been divided over how hard to push Beijing.
Trump, who has threatened to impose duties on virtually all of the more than $US500 billion of Chinese goods exported to the US each year, told Reuters earlier this month that resolving the trade war with China would "take time" and that he had "no time frame" for ending it.
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