Spokesperson's Remarks｜China firmly rejects U.S.'s tariff hikes on all trading partners including China

The U.S.'s tariff hikes on all trading partners, including China, under various pretexts seriously infringe upon the legitimate rights and interests of countries, violate WTO rules, undermine the rules-based multilateral trading system and destabilize the global economic order, and the Chinese government strongly deplores and firmly rejects this, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lin Jian said at a regular press conference on Monday.

Lin Jian, Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesperson/MFA PRC

Experts noticed that the formula that was used by the Trump administration to calculate the tariff rates was simply dividing U.S. trade deficit to that country by a country's exports to the U.S.. So it wasn't related with the real tariff rates at all. China isn't actually deploying 67 percent tariffs to the U.S.. They call it effective tariff rates, claiming currency manipulation and other trade barriers are also added up in the calculation, while in fact not. Lin noted that this represents the right view and position of the international community and people with vision in the comments, and the Chinese government has stated its just position on the U.S. abuse of tariffs.

"What the U.S. has done is a typical move of unilateralism, protectionism and economic bullying. It will hurt the U.S. itself as well as others." Lin said.

Lin believed that the vast majority of countries in the world that uphold fairness and justice will choose to stand on the right side of history, make choices that are in line with their own interests, and jointly oppose all forms of unilateralism, protectionism, and economic bullying.

"China is also willing to work with all parties to uphold true multilateralism, jointly safeguard the multilateral trading system with the WTO at its core, and defend international fairness and justice." Lin said. (By Ma Ziqian/China Youth Daily)