2 weeks Ago By Qiaoyi Li and Kevin Krolicki
China's government has denounced the Trump administration's imposition of a long-threatened 10 per cent tariff on Chinese imports while leaving the door open for talks with the US that could avoid a deepening conflict. or signup to continue reading Beijing will challenge President Donald Trump's tariff at the World Trade Organization and take unspecified "countermeasures" in response to the levy, which takes effect on Tuesday, the finance and commerce ministries said. The response stopped short of the immediate escalation that had marked China's trade showdown with Trump in his first term as president and repeated Beijing's more measured language in recent weeks.
Trump on Saturday ordered 25 per cent tariffs on Canadian and Mexican imports and 10 per cent on goods from China, saying Beijing needed to stop the flow of fentanyl, a deadly opioid, into the US. China's commerce ministry said in a statement that Trump's move "seriously violates" international trade rules and urged the US to "engage in frank dialogue and strengthen co-operation". Filing a lawsuit with the WTO would be a largely symbolic move that Beijing has also taken against tariffs on Chinese-made electric vehicles by the European Union.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning has said Beijing believes there is no winner in a trade war. China's sharpest pushback on Sunday was over fentanyl. The administration of Trump's predecessor, Joe Biden, had also been urging Beijing to crack down on shipments of the China-made precursor chemicals needed to manufacture the drug.
"Fentanyl is America's problem," China's foreign ministry said. "The Chinese side has carried out extensive anti-narcotics co-operation with the United States and achieved remarkable results." Advertisement Sign up for our newsletter to stay up to date.
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