China on Monday hit out at other countries making trade deals with the United States at Beijing’s expense, vowing countermeasures against those who “appease” Washington in the blistering tariff war as its neighbours rush to secure favourable terms from the White House.
While the rest of the world has been hit with a blanket 10 percent tariff, China faces levies of up to 145 percent on many products. Beijing has responded with duties of 125 percent on US goods.
Parallel to Washington’s full trade war against top economic rival China, a number of countries are now engaged in negotiations with the United States to lower tariffs.
Finance and trade ministers from South Korea — a major exporter to the United States — will hold high-level trade talks in Washington this week, Seoul said.
South Korean giants such as Samsung Electronics and auto maker Hyundai stand to take a hefty hit if the White House goes ahead with its threatened levies.
Japan’s prime minister Shigeru Ishiba said on Saturday that talks between Japan and the United States could be a “model for the world”, after Tokyo’s tariffs envoy Ryosei Akazawa visited Washington and met President Donald Trump last week.
“The fact that President Trump came out (to negotiate with Japan’s envoy)… shows he sees talks with Japan as important,” he told the country’s parliament on Monday.
“Japan is their ally and the biggest investor and job creator in the US,” Ishiba said.
US Vice President JD Vance is expected in India on Monday for a four-day official visit as the two countries work to hash out a trade agreement.
But Beijing warned nations on Monday not to seek a deal with the United States that compromised its interests.
“Appeasement will not bring peace, and compromise will not be respected,” a spokesperson for China’s commerce ministry said in a statement.
“To seek one’s own temporary selfish interests at the expense of others’ interests is to seek the skin of a tiger,” Beijing said.
That approach, it warned, “will ultimately fail on both ends and harm others”.
“China firmly opposes any party reaching a deal at the expense of China’s interests,” the spokesperson said.
“If such a situation occurs, China will never accept it and will resolutely take reciprocal countermeasures,” they added.
– ‘Talking to China’ –
Trump’s tariff blitz has seen Washington and Beijing impose eye-watering duties on imports from the other, fanning a standoff between the economic superpowers that has sparked global recession fears and sent markets into a tailspin.
Trump said last week that the United States was in talks with China on tariffs, adding that he was confident the world’s largest economies could make a deal to end the bitter trade war.
“Yeah, we’re talking to China,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office. “I would say they have reached out a number of times.”
“I think we’re going to make a very good deal with China,” he said at the White House.
China has vowed to fight the trade war “to the end” and has not confirmed specific talks with Washington, though it has called for dialogue.
It has also slammed what it calls “unilateralism and protectionism” by Washington — and warned about an international order reverting to the “law of the jungle”.
“Where the strong prey on the weak, all countries will become victims,” Beijing said Monday.