Press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders is scheduled to take reporters' questions for the first time since President Donald Trump asked the U.S. Trade Representative to consider an additional $100 billion in tariffs against China.
The news came on Thursday in a statement from the White House. The penalties would be a response to "China's unfair retaliation" in proposing its own tariffs worth up to $50 billion on 106 products it imports from the U.S., Trump said.
The USTR on Tuesday released a list of 1,333 product lines imported from China that would be slapped with 25 percent tariffs if the proposal is implemented. The list includes products from the robotics, information technology and aerospace sectors.
Friday's briefing will also be the first since Trump acknowledged, for the first time in public, the ongoing lawsuit from porn star Stormy Daniels, who is suing him to void a nondisclosure agreement she claims is invalid.
On Thursday, Trump denied that he knew about the $130,000 payment Daniels received in October 2016 as part of the hush agreement, which allegedly bars her from discussing an affair with Trump years earlier.