China vows to retaliate as necessary after Trump threatens tariffs

The Chinese trade ministry said on Friday that he “firmly opposes” to the American president Donald TrumpThe last threat to accelerate prices on Chinese products and reprisals swore, if necessary.

“If the United States insists on its way, China will take all the countermeasures necessary to defend its legitimate rights and interests,” said a spokesman for the Ministry of Commerce in a press release, translated by CNBC.

“We urge the American side not to repeat your own mistakes and come back as soon as possible on the right track to properly resolve conflicts by dialogue on an equal footing.”

The declaration followed Trump’s announcement on Thursday that the United States impose an additional right of 10% on Chinese imports March 4, which coincides with the start of China’s annual parliamentary meetings.

The new prices would be above the 10% additional rates that Trump received on China on February 4.

Trump announced that the two Chinese tasks cycles were imposed in response to the role of the Asian country in fentanyl trade. Addictive drugs, whose precursors are mainly produced in China and Mexico, has resulted in tens of thousands of overdose deaths every year in the United States

“In the short term, China’s response will likely include the increase in prices on certain American imports, adding American companies to its unreliable, and potentially tightening export controls on critical minerals,” said Neil Thomas, a member of the Chinese Society policy in Asia, by e-mail.

He noted that he nevertheless expects that Beijing reprisals will remain “measured” as Chinese president Xi Jinping An incentive to meet his American counterpart and initiate negotiations to avoid measures that exert greater pressure on already slow economic growth.

China exports were a rare light point in an otherwise slowed economy. The United States is the largest trading partner in China in one country.

Although Beijing can maintain a “sober” position, future movements will probably target the industries that most count to Trump supporters, Alfredo Montufar-Helu, china center of Conference Board said.

China would prefer to leave some room for other negotiations, because it hopes to avoid even higher import prices and other “corrective” measures from Washington, he said.

After the first series of prices earlier this month, reprisal measures in China included Increase rights on certain American energy imports And put two American companies on a list of unreliable entities that could restrict their ability to do business in the Asian country.

China has also increased export controls of critical minerals that the United States needs.

“The strongest arrow that China has in its quiver would be to restrict American access to critical minerals that cannot be easily coming elsewhere,” said Stephen Olson, a researcher visiting the Southeast Asian Studies Institute and former American commercial negotiator.

Despite the lack of details, the Declaration of the Ministry of Commerce brought a stronger tone than the country’s response to the 10% of initial functions earlier this month.

The ministry defended China’s drug control efforts and described the last price threat – illegal fentanyl flow reasons – like “to purely change the blame” without helping the United States to solve its own drug problems. He also denounced the additional samples to “add to the charges on American companies and consumers and disrupt the global supply chain”.

The latest press release “sends a clear message that the Chinese government is ready to respond to defend national interests, and they will not” fold the knee, “said Montufar-Helu.

On the other hand, the ministry Declaration dated February 2 Using Washington to manage fentanyl problems objectively and rationally “while warning the prices could harm the normal economic and commercial relations of China and the United States.

The Chinese Foreign Ministry also hardened its tone in a response to prices on Friday. The American act of “pressures, forcing and threatening” China with prices will only turn against, said Lin spokesperson Jian in the Chinese comments reported by the state media and translated by CNBC.

Trump’s announcement of additional prices “will push China in a position to assume that an agreement may not be possible or cannot be achievable in the short term,” CNBC Deborah Elms, head of the Hinrich Foundation policy, told CNBC.

“This leaves Beijing with two options: either the deployment of continuous measured responses in the hope of avoiding more climbing and perhaps even falling the existing measures; or becoming much more important,” she added, because the “modest previous measures were not sufficient and the threat to future climbing was not taken sufficiently seriously”.

At the start of his second term, Trump ordered his administration to investigate Beijing’s compliance with a trade agreement concluded during his first presidency in 2020. The final result of the evaluation will be delivered to Trump by April 1.

This could open the way to other actions of what Trump called “reciprocal prices”, increasing rights to various countries, including China, to match their existing samples from American imports.

In an article on social networks Thursday, the American president confirmed that “the second date of the reciprocal price of April will remain fully in force and indeed”.