Threats and pressure are not the right way to deal with China, a Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson said on Monday after describing U.S. President Donald Trump’s “reciprocal tariffs” as bullying.
The tariffs are “typical unilateralism and protectionism, and economic bullying”, spokesperson Lin Jian told a regular press conference. He said that U.S. tariffs in the name of reciprocity only served its own interest at the expense of other countries.
Last week, Trump introduced an additional 34% tariff on Chinese goods as part of steep levies imposed on most U.S. trade partners, bringing the total duties on China this year to 54%. China retaliated with a series of countermeasures.
Lin deferred to other bodies the question of whether China would engage in negotiations with the United States.
U.S. customs agents have been collecting Trump’s unilateral 10% tariff on all imports from many countries since Saturday.
“The abuse of tariffs by the United States is tantamount to depriving countries, especially those in the Global South, of their right to development,” Lin said, citing a widening gap between the rich and poor in each country, and less developed countries suffering a greater impact.
All countries should uphold consultation, joint construction and sharing, and “genuine multilateralism”, he said.
China will raise the U.S. reciprocal tariffs as a “new trade concern” at a World Trade Organization meeting on April 9, according to a World Trade Organization document, a move seen by trade sources as a step toward building a broader coalition to oppose them. China has already filed a formal complaint to the Geneva-based watchdog.
Lin also urged countries to jointly oppose all forms of unilateralism and protectionism, and safeguard the international system and the multilateral trading system according to the United Nations and World Trade Organization values, respectively.
(Reporting by Liz Lee and Beijing Newsroom; Additional reporting by Emma Farge in Geneva; Editing by Muralikumar Anantharaman, Toby Chopra and Tomasz Janowski)
