Trade Rep. Jamieson Greer did his best to soft pedal Trump's tariff war with China on rare earth elements, but was called out by CNBC when he claimed China has backed down when they very clearly upped the tension.

The Guardian reports that "China says it will ‘fight to end’ after US said it was trying to hurt world economy. Commerce ministry says US is ‘threatening to intimidate’ with plans for new Trump tariffs on exports."

Which contradicts what Greer continually said on CNBC.

GREER: Either you're trying to retaliate against us or you're trying to do something that you believe is legitimate.

You can see them trying to find narratives that make sense, because the whole world understands what they've done is completely out of proportion, unacceptable, and so they're trying to find a narrative that works for them.

HOST: But do you have any indication that they will backtrack?

GREER: I mean, we will just have to see where that goes, right? I mean, it's hard for them to find an off-ramp at this point.

I think they have realized that they've overstepped. And like I said, President Xi and President Trump have a good relationship.

HOST: You think they've realized they've overstepped? The statement just said, if forced to fight, China will fight to the end.

GREER: And if you look at their statement from a morning or two ago that they put out, they were very careful to say, well, we don't want to ban everything. We're trying to do something that makes sense for everyone. And we think it will have little impact.

I mean, first of all, we have to be very clear-eyed about this.

I think it's a problem to have the program at all.

But you can see by some of that language, they're starting to realize they need to find a different pathway.

What does "fighting till the end" mean to Jamison Greer?