Trade war brawl: Chinese flagship newspaper attacks US President Donald Trump’s ‘street fighter-style drama’
The overseas edition of People’s Daily accuses Trump of reducing international relations to a zero-sum game, adding that Beijing will not cede to threats
A top Chinese state propaganda outlet has lashed out at US President Donald Trump, accusing him of launching a “deceitful drama” of a trade conflict and insisting that Beijing will not surrender to threats.
In a front-page editorial on Monday, the overseas edition of People’s Daily said Trump was “starring in his own carefully orchestrated street fighter-style deceitful drama” in which diplomacy had been reduced to nothing but a “trading game in which everything should follow the rule of America first”.
“To realise the goal of reviving the American economy, Trump has chosen a simple but crude way. He has bypassed the multilateral trading system of the World Trade Organisation and started trade conflicts, forcing countries, including its traditional allies, to cede their interests to those of the United States,” it said.
The latest volley in the trade row between the countries comes as Chinese leaders gather in the coastal resort of Beidaihe near Beijing for their informal, annual summit to discuss the domestic, economic and foreign policies of the coming year.
The conflict is expected to be high on the gathering’s agenda, with the US and China already imposing 25 per cent tariffs on US$34 billion of each other’s goods and duties on another US$16 billion in Chinese products in the pipeline.
In addition, Beijing announced on Friday that it would add duties ranging from 5 to 25 per cent on an additional US$60 billion in US goods if the Trump administration went ahead with similar action, warning that further countermeasures were ready at any time.