Trump confirms latest China tariffs set for Sunday are 'on'

US President Donald Trump said Friday that new tariffs on Chinese goods will kick in on Sunday and that his economic pressure is forcing Beijing to take a more moderate line in Hong Kong. "They're on," Trump told reporters, two days before the levies on billions of dollars worth of Chinese imports are set to rise in the latest escalation of the trade war between the world's two biggest economies.

Trump also said that US economic pressure on China was responsible for preventing the authorities from carrying out a harsher crackdown against pro-democracy demonstrators in Hong Kong. "Because of what I'm doing with trade that's really keeping down the temperature," he said at the White House.