Chinese negotiators have also continued to insist that Mr. Trump lift the tariffs he has placed on $250 billion worth of goods more quickly than the administration wants. With the two sides still disagreeing over issues including how China subsidizes its companies, its restrictions on data transfers, its approvals of genetically modified seeds and rules for foreign cloud computing companies, the president concluded late last week that China’s offers were not good enough.
On Sunday, Mr. Trump’s tariff threats sparked concern among business and industry groups, but drew praise from both sides of the political aisle.
“Hang tough on China, President @realDonaldTrump,” Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the Democratic leader, said on Twitter.
“Excellent decision by @realDonaldTrump!” Laura Ingraham, a Fox News host, tweeted, which the president retweeted onto his feed. “No other president has had the guts to take on the China challenge.”
Mr. Lighthizer said on Monday that the United States was targeting some “very pernicious actions” by the Chinese, and that reversing them would have an enormous benefit for the American economy and the world. He also pushed back against reports that the evolving agreement would do little to address China’s subsidization of key industries.
Analysts have questioned whether volatility in the stock markets could change the president’s mind. Mr. Trump’s tariff threats caused markets in Asia to plummet Monday morning, but in the United States, the S&P 500 index closed down 0.45 percent, while the Dow Industrial was down just 0.25 percent.
It was unclear whether markets viewed Mr. Trump’s tariff threat merely as a negotiating tactic. The president has turned to tariffs as a source of leverage to bring other negotiations to the close. In talks last year over the North American Free Trade Agreement, Mr. Trump threatened to leave Canada out of the deal entirely and strike a deal with Mexico, a gambit that brought negotiations to a rapid conclusion.
In a note on Monday, Joshua Shapiro, the chief United States economist for MFR, an economic research firm, said his forecast and most others assumed that the United States-China trade talks resulted in no further damage, at a minimum. “Given expectations of an agreement, failure to achieve one would be a serious blow to markets and the economy,” he wrote.