Hot on the heels of returning from his summit in Singapore U.S.

President Donald Trump's set to decide whether to heat things up on another Asian front America's looming trade war with China.

On Thursday (June 14) Trump will meet with top White House advisors to decide whether to activate tariffs on $50 billion dollars worth of Chinese goods.

Friday (June 15) is the day set months ago for the U.S. to set its final list of targets.

The U.S. has alleged that Chinese companies have stolen American intellectual property.

They say Chinese laws helped that happen including rules that require joint ventures, state-backed buyouts of U.S. tech firms and through what Trump has called outright theft. (SOUNDBITE) (English) U.S.

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP, SAYING: "China as an example has made a fortune, a transfer of wealth like nobody has seen in history.

They're the big one." People familiar with changes to the final list say it will be shorter and some items may be swapped out for others.

But a U.S. official told Reuters the new list will still be close to that magic number of 50 billion dollars.

Under law, Trump can delay the activation of tariffs by 30 days, but there was little sign he'd do that.

On Wednesday Trump said he was quote "very strongly clamping down on trade" with China.

And that China should understand what his administration was doing.

China's Commerce Ministry did not mention the potential activation of tariffs on Thursday.

But they did say that Chinese companies are quote "front-loading" shipments this month, or sending extra goods on top of normal monthly orders, due to what they called changes in the international trade environment.