U.S. President Donald Trump praised China’s leadership and called the country a friend before signing a large package of tariffs citing an “out of control” trade deficit.

“Let me assure those people who intend to fight a trade war. We will certainly fight back. We will retaliate. If people want to play tough, we will play tough with them, and see who will last longer,” said the Chinese ambassador to the U.S., Cui Tiankai, on Thursday.

CGTN’s Nathan King has this report from the White House.

To discuss:

• Song Zhang is the Washington, DC bureau chief for Shanghai Wen Hui Daily
• Chen Zhao is a founding partner of Alpine Macro
• Dan Ikenson is the Director of the Herbert A. Stiefel Center for Trade Policy Studies, with the Cato Institute.
• Robert Hormats is the vice-chairman of Kissinger Associates and a former U.S. Undersecretary of State.

For more:

WATCH: President Trump, ignoring reporters' shouted questions, signs memorandum ordering new tariffs on Chinese imports that will go into effect in at least 45 days https://t.co/790g86Yhtp pic.twitter.com/0R6Y6XZNen

— CBS News (@CBSNews) March 22, 2018

Tariffs on China do more harm than good, U.S.-China Business Council says https://t.co/j343fRvCrR pic.twitter.com/J4TMMHRPQz

— Bloomberg (@business) March 22, 2018