China promises to hit back if US President Donald Trump imposes new tariffs
Additional 10 per cent levy on billions in Chinese goods comes just days after White House endorses 25 per cent tariff
China has vowed to retaliate with quantitative and qualitative measures if the United States goes ahead with its additional tariff plan against Beijing.
The Ministry of Commerce said the new threat from US President Donald Trump of imposing tariffs on US$200 billion worth of Chinese products was an act of “blackmail”, which was against earlier agreements and disappointed the international community.
“If the US side loses sanity to launch the list, China will be forced to take comprehensive measures combining both quantitative and qualitative ones as a powerful hit-back,” the ministry said in a statement on Tuesday.
Shi Yinhong, a professor of international relations at Renmin University of China in Beijing, said the world’s two largest economies are now in “a semi economic cold war”, and Beijing faces a challenge of bringing back Trump to the trade negotiation table.
“China can make compromises of boosting imports from the US, lowering market entrance for US businesses … but it’s hard for China to make compromises on the structural level such as significantly reducing the state role in economic activities,” Shi added.
Louis Kuijs, Head of Asia Economics at Oxford Economics, wrote in a note that “China will run out of ammunition sooner than the US” in terms of import tariffs because China’s imports of US goods are smaller than US imports of Chinese ones.