China hikes tariffs on US goods to 125 per cent after Xi Jinping’s first public comment on escalating trade war

The Chinese leader, Xi Jinping, said that his nation “is not afraid”, in his first public comments on the growing commercial war with the United States, since Beijing raised tariffs on US goods to 125 percent.

The tariff walk is the last one in a Battle of Tit-For-Tat between the two largest economies in the world, after Trump raised tariffs on China to 145 percent. However, China has indicated that it does not intend to go higher than 125 percent, saying that it would not make sense to participate in a greater escalation.

“The successive imposition of excessively high tariffs in China by the United States has become nothing more than a game of numbers, without real economic importance,” said a spokesman for the Ministry of Commerce of China in a statement on Friday.

“It simply exposes even more the practice of the United States to build tariffs as an intimidation and coercion tool, becoming a joke,” added the spokesman.

The commercial war between the two economic superpowers of the world has collapsed international markets and fed the fears of a global recession. As other countries rushed to negotiate with Trump, China has remained firm against what calls “unilateral harassment” by the United States.

Speaking to the Spanish prime minister Pedro Sánchez in Beijing on Friday before the announcement of the new levies, XI said: “There are no winners in a commercial war, and go against the world will only lead to selfisoking.”

“For more than 70 years, China’s development has been based on self -sufficiency and hard work: never on brochures of others, and is not afraid of any unjustified suppression,” said XI cited by the state station of the CCTV.

The Chinese leader had remained publicly silent in the War of the Rate until now, but hit a challenging note in his first comments: to double the messages of strength and resistance already transmitted by Chinese officials and state media.

“Regardless of how the external environment changes, China will remain safe, it will remain focused and concentrate on administer its own matters,” XI said according to CCTV.

On Wednesday, Trump moved to give the rest of the world, with the exception of China, a 90 -day break in his tariffs. Beijing seemed to take some credit for that decision on Friday.

“We have noticed that, under the pressure of China and other parties, the United States has temporarily postponed the imposition of high tariffs reciprocal to certain commercial partners. This is simply a symbolic and minor step, but does not change the fundamental nature of the use of the commercial coercion of the United States to pursue their own interests,” said spokesman for the Ministry of Commerce.

While China says that “it will not get involved” in more tariff walks, it has many other options in its toolbox.

Chinese commentators influential with Links to Beijing have presented a series of possible countermeasures that China could take, including the suspension of cooperation in the fentanyl, which prohibits the importation of American poultry, limiting access to the service market as legal consulting and investigating how much US companies of their intellectual property in China earned.

“If the United States persists in substantially damaging China’s interests, China will take resolutely countermeasures and fight until the end,” added the spokesman for the Ministry of Commerce.

Before announcing his last tariff walk on Friday, Beijing said he would stop the importation of Hollywood films, after having uploaded their own tariffs in the US. UU. To 84 percent and would restrict some US companies to do business in China or import dual use of Chinese.

The unprecedented tariffs threaten to decimate trade between the two largest economies in the world and additional damage in other areas, without an obvious ramp in sight.

CNN reported Thursday that Trump is waiting for XI to communicate, and told his team that the United States will not make the first movement; But Beijing has repeatedly refused to organize a phone call at the leader level.

Instead of calling Trump to negotiate tariffs, XI has launched a week of high -risk diplomacy with other commercial partners to reject the growing commercial war.

His Friday meeting with Sánchez of Spain is ahead of a tour of multiple nations next week from Southeast Asia, a region strongly directed by Trump’s “reciprocal” rates before they stop. XI will visit Vietnam, Malaysia and Cambodia on their first foreign trip this year, according to the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Although such high -level meetings generally take weeks or even months to plan, the moment of ads, only days after the two economic superpowers were imposed record tariffs with each other, underlines XI’s message that China is not going back.

The Chinese leader is trying to capitalize on the agitation caused by Trump’s tariff whip to deepen the ties with Asia’s nations to Europe, presenting China as a reliable partner and defender of global trade.

Sánchez, who is on his third visit to China in two years, is probably the first in a series of European leaders who go to Beijing amid the global economic uncertainty unleashed by Trump.

During his meeting, Xi told Sanchez that the world is experiencing invisible accelerated changes in a century.

“The more complex and volatile the international landscape is, the more important it is to maintain solid and stable relationships between China and Spain,” XI said, promising to work together in areas such as new energy, high -tech manufacturing and smart cities.

The Chinese leader also extended an olive branch to the European Union, describing it as “an important pole in a multipolar world” and emphasized that China has always “clearly supported” the group.

In a fake vision soap in the United States, XI also asked China and the EU, which together represent more than a third of the world economy, to work together to defend international rules and order.

“China and the EU should fulfill its international responsibilities, jointly maintain the trend of economic globalization and the global commercial environment, and work together to oppose bullying,” XI said, using a phrase that Beijing used to criticize US tariffs.

‘Shared future’ with neighbors

Strengthening strategic ties with its neighbors is a high on China’s diplomatic agenda.

Vietnam and Cambodia were among the countries most affected by Trump’s “reciprocal” tariffs, established in 46 percent and 49 percent respectively before the pause. Both countries have seen an increase in the investment of Chinese and international companies in recent years as China’s supply chains move to take advantage of the lowest labor costs and coverage against US taxes.

This week, XI asked China to build a “future shared with neighboring countries”, while talking at a work conference of the High Profile Communist Party on Peripheral Diplomacy.

An official statement of the two -day meeting required that China “strengthens cooperation in industrial and supply chains” with the close Asian nations.

China’s relations with their neighbors were “at their best since modern times, while entering a critical phase in which regional dynamics and global changes are being deeply interconnected,” the statement said.

Beijing’s relations with countries in Europe and Asia have been tested more and more in recent years, with western aligned nations that followed the United States, for example, they seemed to limit China’s access to semiconductor technology. Beijing’s close relations with Moscow have further tensioned these ties.

But since Trump’s re -election, China has been anxious to repair ties. In recent weeks, Chinese officials have spoken with the counterparts of the countries of South Korea, Japan and Europe in an attempt to expand commercial cooperation, and one of the United States by winning American allies and partners exasperated by the commercial war again.

It is likely that China’s business partners consider Beijing’s Oberturas with skepticism.

Many of those nations distrust themselves from being flooded with cheap Chinese products. Beijing is also well known for having exercised access to his massive market as a weapon to force countries, often about political positions that caused Beijing’s anger.