China will not accept US trade ‘blackmail’ — State media
BEIJING/SINGAPORE: China’s state media said the government’s retaliatory tariffs on US$ 60 billion of US goods showed rational restraint and they accused the US of blackmail.
Late on Friday, China’s finance ministry unveiled new sets of additional tariffs on 5,207 goods imported from the US, with the extra levies ranging from five to 25 per cent on a total value of goods less than half of that proposed by US President Donald Trump’s administration.
The response follows the Trump administration’s proposal of a 25 per cent tariff on US$ 200 billion worth of Chinese imports.
“China’s countermeasures are rational,” the Global Times, a tabloid run by the official People’s Daily, said in a commentary.
“China will not rush to compete with US numbers,” it said, echoing comments made by state television.
The US and China implemented tariffs on US$ 34 billion worth of each others’ 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.
“The White House’s extreme pressure and blackmail are already clear to the international community,” said a state television commentary. “Such methods of extreme blackmail will not bear fruit against China.”
In a series of tweets on Saturday, Trump disagreed.
“Tariffs are working far better than anyone ever anticipated,” he claimed, citing a big drop in China’s stock market. “They are really hurting their economy.”
Trump also claimed that China was talking to the US about trade, but he provided no details. He said his administration would continue to employ tariffs if other nations were unwilling to come to the table on trade.
“We are using them to negotiate fair trade deals,” Trump said.
China has now either imposed or proposed tariffs on US$ 110 billion in US goods, representing the vast majority of China’s annual imports of American products.
Last year, China imported about US$ 130 billion in goods from the US. Trump has ultimately threatened tariffs on over US$ 500 billion in Chinese goods, covering virtually all US imports from China.
“The US has repeatedly resorted to threatening and deceitful routines, trying to force China to compromise, both overestimating its own bargaining power and underestimating China’s determination and ability to defend its national dignity and the interests of its people,” said a commentary in the official Xinhua news agency.
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, however, remained staunch on Washington’s push for fairer trading conditions with China.
“President Trump inherited an unfair trade regime where American workers and American companies were not treated reciprocally or fairly by the Chinese, and the efforts of the Trump administration are to right that, to correct that,” Pompeo told reporters on the sidelines of a regional forum in Singapore.
Pompeo added that he had discussed trade issues with Chinese State Councillor Wang Yi on Friday. Wang said on Friday they did not get into details.
Malaysian Foreign Minister Saifuddin Abdullah said he met Pompeo in Singapore and that his message was clear.
“My objective was quite straightforward: I think I need to inform him that we are very concerned,” said Saifuddin.
Countries like Malaysia form an integral part of Chinese exporters’ supply chains, and analysts have warned a trade war could knock billions of dollars off their economic growth in coming years. — Reuters