Agreements void if US imposes tariffs: ministry

China reiterated on Thursday that any agreements reached on trade between China and the US will be void if the US imposes tariffs and other trade measures.

Foreign Ministry spokesperson Geng Shuang made the point at a daily press briefing on Thursday, in response to a question about whether China has the confidence to fight back in a trade war.

Geng said that positive and specific progress was achieved during the latest round of consultations between the US and China at the beginning of June. “After the consultations, China said in a statement that if the US imposes tariffs and other trade measures, any agreements reached between the two will be void. Here, I want to reiterate this point,” Geng said.

“The essence of the ChinaUS economic and trade relationship is win-win cooperation. We’ve always demanded that the two countries solve economic and trade problems via talks on the basis of mutual respect, equality and mutual benefit,” Geng noted.

US President Donald Trump will meet with his top trade advisers on Thursday to decide whether to activate threatened tariffs on billions of dollarsworth of Chinese goods, a senior official said.

Trump is due to unveil revisions to his initial tariff list targeting $50 billion of Chinese goods on Friday. People familiar with the revisions said that the list will be slightly smaller than the original, with some goods deleted and others added, particularly in the technology sector.

Another official said a draft document showed that the new list would still be close to $50 billion, with about 1,300 product categories, but both the dollar amount and quantity of products were still subject to change.