The pledged today (2,2.22025) to respond to the young Americans , whom American President Donald Trump announced yesterday (1.2,2025) , repeating that commercial wars “do not have a winner”. The Republican increased yesterday by 10% the tariffs for imported products from China, the US’s second largest trading partner after Mexico. Sino-American trade amounted to around EUR 500 billion in the first 11 months of 2024, but the US was at a disadvantage, with a deficit of around EUR 260 billion in the same period, according to Washington data. CORVERSE “China is strongly dissatisfied and strongly opposed to the increase in customs duties”, the Chinese Ministry of Commerce stressed in a communication, in which it spoke of “similar measures aimed at decisive protection” of Chinese “rights and interests”. “There are no winners in a trade war or in a tariff war,” the Chinese Foreign Ministry assured. Beijing at the same time announced that it would appeal to the World Trade Organisation (WTO) for what it described as “a unilateral imposition of duties against a serious breach of WTO rules”. These duties “are not only useless to solve US problems, but also undermine normal economic and commercial cooperation,” the Chinese Ministry of Commerce stressed. “China hopes that the US will look and deal with their problems, such as fentanyl, instead of ultimately threatening other countries with customs duties,” he added. Beijing also called on “the US to correct their wrong practices (…) to address their problems, to have frank discussions, to strengthen cooperation and to settle their differences on the basis of equality, benefit and mutual respect,” the Ministry of Trade stressed. China’s strongest reaction involved fentanyl, an issue on which it was lobbying in Beijing and Joe Biden’s previous US government, asking him to take steps to address the export to the US of Chinese chemical manufacturing needed to manufacture the drug. “Fentany is America’s problem,” stressed the Chinese Foreign Ministry. “Chinese side has worked extensively with US to combat drugs and has achieved notable results”.
Beijing appeals to the WTO against US duties
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