Trump doubles down with $100b in new tariffs

China also retaliated early this week against the US Section 232 tariffs on steel and aluminum imports imposed on March 23 in the name of national security. The tariffs Chinese imposed include 128 US products from pork, nuts to seamless steel pipes.

Both the Section 232 and Section 301 tariffs are regarded as a violation of the World Trade Organization rules.

On Thursday morning, Trump's White House trade advisor Peter Navarro and National Economic Council Director Larry Kudlow both indicated that a solution will be found through negotiation.

Navarro said that there will be discussions between US Trade Representative Bob Lighthizer, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and Chinese officials.

He told CNBC that the meeting is "to try to get some place, where China stops doing what it is doing in terms of its aggressive attack on our economy".

"We are in conversation. It's all part of the discussion. Let's not jump to the worst-case conclusion," Kudlow told the media Thursday morning when asked about a negative impact on US farmers and workers in a trade war.

"We don't have a tariff enacted yet," he said, adding that that the end game is economic growth by tearing down barriers and playing by rules.

Douglas Paal, vice-president for studies at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said White House officials are sending confusing signals.

"That may be Mr. Trump's intention, to meet political and economic objectives that are a bit out of alignment with each other. But it may reflect different objectives from different wings of the White House," he said.

Marcus Noland, executive vice-president and director for studies at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, said the Trump administration has not really articulated its goal, the mechanism or the timeline.

"They seem to be going off on a trajectory where they are going to act tough," Noland said. "They're not going to have clear goals. They're not going to have a clear mechanism for resolving the issues, and they really seem to be heading in a direction of imposition of measures that are supposed to address some kind of issue and end up just being a permanent feature."