China: Trump’s trade extortion won’t work

> Chinese state media says US president starring in his own ‘street fighter-style deceitful drama’

BEIJING: Chinese state media yesterday lambasted US President Donald Trump’s trade policies in an unusually personal attack, and sought to reassure investors anxious about China’s economy as growth concerns battered its financial markets.

China’s strictly controlled news outlets have frequently rebuked the United States and the Trump administration as the trade conflict has escalated, but they have largely refrained from specifically targeting Trump.

The latest criticism from the overseas edition of the ruling Communist Party’s People’s Daily newspaper singled out Trump, saying he was starring in his own “street fighter-style deceitful drama of extortion and intimidation”.

Trump’s desire for others to play along with his drama is “wishful thinking”, a commentary on the paper’s front page said, arguing that the United States had escalated trade friction with China and turned international trade into a “zero-sum game”.

“Governing a country is not like doing business,” the paper said, adding that Trump’s actions imperilled the national credibility of the United States.

The heated dispute between the world’s two biggest economies has roiled financial markets including stocks, currencies and the global trade of commodities from soybeans to coal in recent months. Last month, the International Monetary Fund warned that escalating trade conflicts following US tariff actions on its trading partners threaten to derail the global economic recovery.

The United States and China implemented tariffs on US$34 billion (RM138.7 billion) worth of each other’s goods in July. Washington is expected to soon implement tariffs on an additional US$16 billion of Chinese goods, which China has already said it will match immediately.

On Friday, China’s finance ministry unveiled new sets of additional tariffs on 5,207 goods imported from the United States worth US$60 billion.

That move was in response to the Trump administration’s proposal of a 25% tariff on US$200 billion worth of Chinese imports.

The trade war, rising corporate bankruptcies, and a steep decline in the value of the yuan versus the dollar have raised concerns that China’s economy could face a steeper slowdown.

Recent data showed growth has already started to cool.

The government has responded by releasing more liquidity into the banking system, encouraging lending and promising a more “active” fiscal policy.

US companies are putting in place measures to cushion the impact of the trade row, including price hikes, and a number of companies – from industrial firms to home furnishers and toymakers – have said they will move some sourcing and manufacturing outside of China.

China’s exports are expected to have maintained solid growth in July despite the new tariffs on billions of dollars of shipments to the United States, though the outlook has darkened as both sides raised the stakes in the trade brawl. – Reuters