China angry over Trump's latest tariff threats but gives no clues about countermeasures
Source: Politico
By AMANDA LEE | SOUTH CHINA MORNING POST 06/21/2018 08:54 AM EDT
This story is being published for POLITICO as part of a content partnership with the South China Morning Post. It originally appeared on scmp.com on June 21, 2018.
China’s commerce ministry on Thursday accused Washington of being “protectionist” and “blackmailing” by threatening to impose further tariffs on Chinese products, but the ministry declined to specify how Beijing will respond.
Ministry spokesman Gao Feng said in Beijing that the United States had abused its import tariffs system and had started trade wars in various parts of the world to “seriously undermine the world trade order and harm the interests of its trading partners”. Washington’s allegation of China stealing its technology “is a serious distortion of history and reality” and the U.S. was picking China as a “scapegoat” for its own problems, he said.
Gao was responding to President Donald Trump’s latest threat to hit $200 billion worth of Chinese imports with 10 percent tariffs if Beijing retaliates against his previous announcement to target $50 billion in imports, and to target another $200 billion worth of Chinese products if Beijing chooses to fight back. If it makes good on its threats, U.S. actions could affect as much as $450 billion worth of Chinese imports. However, Gao didn’t give details on what specific retaliatory measures the Chinese government will adopt against the fresh threats.
He repeated what the ministry said on Tuesday, that China would take forceful “qualitative and quantitative” countermeasures.
Read more: https://www.politico.com/story/2018/06/21/china-angry-trumps-latest-tariff-threats-641409
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