China rejects Trump's new tariff threat, vows to 'fight till end'

ISTANBUL

China on Tuesday rejected US President Donald Trump's new threat of imposing another 50% duty on Chinese imports, saying it "will fight till the end," state news agency Xinhua reported.

The Commerce Ministry said Beijing “firmly opposes” any moves to increase tariffs by Washington and vowed to take countermeasures to safeguard its rights.

"China will fight till the end if the U.S. side is bent on going down the wrong path," the ministry said, adding that the US tariff escalation threat against China compounds its mistake and further exposes its nature of "blackmail," which China will never accept.

"The US so-called 'reciprocal tariffs' against China are groundless and a typical practice of unilateral bullying," it said, arguing that China's countermeasures adopted were legitimate actions aimed at protecting its sovereignty, security, and development interests, as well as maintaining a normal international trade order.

Trump on Monday threatened to impose additional 50% tariffs on China on top of the imposed 34% "reciprocal" tariffs announced last week, if Beijing’s decision to match the 34% duties on US imports was not reversed.

Besides the reciprocal tariffs, the US president already put in place a 20% levy on Chinese goods.

Trump has announced sweeping tariffs, ranging from 10% to 50%, on several countries, roiling global markets.

'Economic bullying'

Foreign Ministry spokesman Lin Jian called the tariffs "typical unilateralism, protectionism, and economic bullying," and that China "strongly condemns and resolutely opposes it."

Separately, Xinhua's senior editor Liu Hong suggested measures to counteract Washington's tariffs including suspending cooperation with Washington on fentanyl-related issues, increasing the tariffs on US agricultural products such as soybeans and sorghum, banning US poultry, restricting US services in China, reducing or banning imports of American films and launching an investigation on the intellectual property benefits of US companies operating in China.

*Islamuddin Sajid contributed to the report.