BEIJING — China is emphasizing its willingness to negotiate as increased tariffs on exports to the United States may soon become a reality.

U.S. President Donald Trump said this week he may increase duties on Chinese goods by 10% as soon as Feb. 1. The White House on Monday also announced plans to investigate China over actions harmful to U.S. commerce.

China’s Ministry of Commerce has always maintained communication with “relevant” U.S. authorities on economy and trade, ministry spokesperson He Yadong said in response on Thursday.

“The Chinese side hopes that under the strategic guidance of the two heads of state, both sides will … strengthen dialogue and communication, properly manage differences, expand mutually beneficial cooperation and promote the stable and healthy development of China-U.S. economic and trade relations,” He added during a weekly press conference. That’s according to a CNBC translation of his Mandarin-language remarks.

Trump said last week that he spoke with Chinese President Xi Jinping over the phone about TikTok and trade. The Chinese side’s readout did not mention the social media app, but said Xi called for cooperation and cast the two countries’ economic ties as mutually beneficial.

“Tariffs are not conducive to China or the U.S., or the entire world,” commerce spokesperson He said.

“China is willing to work with the U.S. to push bilateral economic and trade relations in a stable, healthy and sustainable direction,” He said, noting that was on the basis of “mutual respect, peaceful coexistence and win-win cooperation.”

The comments echoed those of China’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning on Tuesday.

“We stand ready to maintain communication with the U.S., properly handle differences, expand mutually beneficial cooperation and pursue a steady, sound and sustainable development of China-U.S. relationship,” Mao said when asked about negotiations over tariffs.

“China will also firmly defend its own interests,” she said. That’s according to an official English-language transcript.

Even if 10% tariffs are imposed on China, that’s far lower than the original 60% that Trump had floated during his campaign.

Hours after his inauguration on Monday, Trump reiterated plans for 25% tariffs on Mexico and Canada, without specifying a figure for China. He said only that increased duties might be used to force Beijing-based ByteDance to sell social media app TikTok, whose future availability in the U.S. is now in question.

When asked about TikTok on Thursday, Chinese commerce spokesperson He said China “hopes the U.S. side will listen more to the voices of businesses and the public,” and “do more things that are conducive to economic and trade cooperation between China and the United States and the well-being of the people.”

BEIJING — A record share of U.S. companies in China are accelerating their plans to relocate manufacturing or sourcing, according to a business survey released Thursday.

About 30% of the respondents considered or started such diversification in 2024, surpassing the prior high of 24% in 2022, according to annual surveys from the American Chamber of Commerce in China.

That also exceeded the 23% share reported for 2017, when U.S. President Donald Trump began his first term and started raising tariffs on Chinese goods.

In addition to U.S.-China tensions, “one of the major impacts that we’ve seen in the last five years was Covid and how China closed itself off from the world because of Covid,” Michael Hart, Beijing-based president of AmCham China, told reporters Thursday.

“That’s been one of the largest triggers as people realized they needed to diversify their supply chains,” he said. “I don’t see that trend slowing down.”

China restricted international travel and locked down parts of the country during the Covid-19 pandemic in an attempt to restrict the spread of the disease.

While India and Southeast Asian countries remained the most popular destination for relocating production, the survey showed 18% of the respondents considered relocating to the U.S. in 2024, up from 16% the prior year.

The majority of U.S. companies did not plan to diversify. Just over two-thirds, or 67%, of respondents said they were not considering relocating manufacturing, a 10 percentage point drop from 2023, the survey showed.

The latest AmCham China survey covered 368 members from Oct. 21 to Nov. 15. Trump was re-elected U.S. president on Nov. 5.

Trump this week affirmed plans to raise tariffs on Chinese goods by 10%, and said the duties could come as soon as Feb. 1. That follows an increasingly tough U.S. stance on China. The Biden administration had emphasized the U.S. is in competition with China and issued sweeping restrictions on the ability of Chinese companies to access high-end U.S. tech.

More than 60% of the respondents said U.S.-China tensions were the biggest challenge for doing business in China in the year ahead. Competition from local state-owned companies or privately owned Chinese companies was the second-biggest challenge for U.S. businesses operating in China, according to the survey.

Cryptocurrency firm bosses are optimistic about the changes of comprehensive federal rules for the industry passing this year now that Donald Trump, who is a backer of bitcoin, returned to the White House.

The CEOs of Coinbase, Binance and Circle told CNBC they now see a clearer path toward securing some concrete rules on digital assets — unlike the previous U.S. administration, which took aggressive enforcement action against several major crypto companies.

Coinbase’s Brian Armstrong said that he sees crypto entering the “dawn of a new day” with a Trump-led U.S. administration.

“You have to remember: the last four years, we really felt like we were being attacked by this administration,” Armstrong told CNBC in a TV interview at the World Economic Forum’s annual event in Davos, Switzerland.

“They tried to weaponize the lack of clarity in the rules to really push back, even on the good actors,” Armstrong added. “There were some bad actors too, to be fair — but they even really tried to go after the good actors, I think, like us.”

Coinbase is the biggest crypto trading platform in the U.S. The firm often touts itself as a regulated alternative to offshore exchanges, like Binance.

On Tuesday, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission announced the launch of a “crypto task force” aimed at “developing a comprehensive and clear regulatory framework for crypto assets.”

The SEC panel will be tasked with developing a clear set of rules for the crypto sector, while also addressing issues regarding registration of coins, according to a statement from the agency.

Coinbase’s Armstrong said the current main priority for crypto as an industry is working to get legislation passed in the U.S. to offer clarity.

“The industry is just ready for this new change,” he told CNBC. “They’re ready for clear rules. And that’s our big push.”

Richard Teng, CEO of Binance, highlighted token issuance, trading and asset management as some of the key things he’s expecting to see progress on in terms of crypto-specific legislation in the U.S.

Teng said he sees “much clearer regulation” happening in the U.S. this year — and that this would be supportive for bitcoin and other digital assets.

“If you look at past cycles, this year will be a year that we see a new all-time high for the crypto industry,” Teng said in a CNBC-hosted fireside discussion in Davos, Switzerland.

Bitcoin, the world’s largest cryptocurrency, passed the $100,000 price milestone for the first time last year, as traders grew optimistic about the crypto industry’s prospects under a Trump administration.

As of Wednesday, the token was trading at a price of about $104,000, according to CoinGecko data.

Circle’s CEO sees the U.S. advancing legislation particularly around so-called stablecoins — digital tokens designed to be pegged to real-world assets like the dollar — given that there’s already bipartisan support in Congress for such tokens. Circle is behind USDC, which is one of the largest stablecoins.

The Clarity for Payment Stablecoins Act, a bill that seeks to establish a regulatory regime to license issuers of stablecoins, was working its way through Congress before last year’s election. It has yet to pass a House vote.