BEIJING — A day after a bruising round of new tariffs came into effect, China ramped up its criticism of the U.S. in a news conference of six top trade and industry officials, portraying itself as a virtuous defender of global trade and the Trump administration as hurting the global economy.
Hardening China’s tone, trade negotiator Wang Shouwen said new U.S. tariffs on $200 billion in Chinese goods were so massive that it made trade talks impossible.
“Now that the United States has adopted such huge restrictive measures, like holding a knife to someone’s neck, how can negotiations proceed?” said Wang at a news conference. “It would not be negotiations of equality.” Wang said American officials had lacked sincerity and trustworthiness in several previous rounds of trade talks.
As trade tensions escalated this past summer, Chinese officials offered a muted defense against U.S. claims that China had been cheating in global trade for years. With hopes fading for an early resolution to the trade war, Tuesday’s news conference offered the sharpest defense of China’s position so far. Officials warned of the global costs of an extended, all-out trade war, warning it would not only hurt China and the United States, but companies around the world.
“I think all companies dislike trade wars,” Wang said. “The trade war means damage to companies all around the world.”
“War in all forms, whether a trade war or a real war, comes at a great price and it will be people who suffer in the end,” warned Fu Ziying, China’s international trade representative.
The Trump administration imposed new tariffs on $200 billion in Chinese goods Monday, and China immediately retaliated by imposing tariffs on $60 billion in American goods, dashing hopes of an early end to the conflict.
In the past, U.S. President Trump has portrayed China’s trade deficit with the U.S. as “rape” or the “biggest theft in the history of the world.”
“China last year took out $500 billion from our country — 500 billion. Five hundred — not million — 500 billion,” he told an election rally Friday in Missouri, referring to the $505.6 billion in Chinese imports to the U.S. in 2017. (The U.S.-China trade deficit was $376 billion last year.) He boasted that “we have far more bullets” in the trade war.
