Breaking: President Trump and President Xi will no longer be speaking today after China sued

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt had announced earlier that a call between Trump and Xi was being scheduled and would happen “very soon.” Today’s developments put that on ice, according to a report from the Wall Street Journal.

The fallout started when the US hit China with 10% tariffs early Tuesday morning. The reaction was fast and brutal. Beijing struck back with its own set of retaliatory moves. Chinese officials announced tariffs targeting key American exports and slapped new restrictions on the export of critical minerals—materials the US tech and defense sectors need badly.

Beijing also threw an antitrust case at Google and placed sanctions on Nvidia’s chips. Then the lawsuit came, which has definitely escalated tensions between the two largest economies. “China has filed a case against the US tariff measures under the WTO dispute settlement mechanism,” its commerce ministry said.

Chinese officials labeled the American tariffs “malicious” and said they were a direct attack on China’s “legitimate rights and interests.” The timing couldn’t be worse for global financial markets, including, of course, crypto.

China’s retaliatory tariffs will go live on February 10. Meanwhile, American negotiators scrambled Monday to delay imposing similar trade penalties on Mexico and Canada. Those deals might cool things with North America, but China isn’t playing around.

Peter Navarro, Trump’s trade adviser, originally said the call between Trump and Xi was intended to pause the tariff escalation. But with China suing at the WTO and tensions boiling over, today’s call is dead in the water.

Trump had warned this could happen. “If we can’t make a deal with China, then the tariffs would be very, very substantial,” he said earlier, calling the current round of tariffs an “opening salvo.” Beijing clearly saw it as more than that.

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