China said on Monday that the US president's accusations, Donald Trump, that Beijing violated the consensus reached in the Geneva trade talks are “baseless” and vowed to take strong measures to protect its interests.
The Commerce Department's comment was a response to Trump's remarks on Friday, in which the US president said China had violated a bilateral agreement to reduce tariffs.
The ministry said China has implemented the agreement reached last month in Geneva. It also said it has been actively upholding that commitment. Meanwhile, the US has introduced several “discriminatory restrictive” measures against China.
These measures included issuing guidance on export controls for AI chips. They also involved suspending sales of chip design software to China. In addition, visas for Chinese students were revoked, the ministry added.
Tensions escalate after new US tariffs and restrictive measures
“The US government has unilaterally and repeatedly provoked new economic and trade frictions, thus exacerbating uncertainty and instability in bilateral economic and trade relations,” the ministry said in a statement.
However, the statement did not elaborate on what strong measures might be taken in response.
On the other hand, Beijing and Washington had agreed in mid-May in Geneva to suspend triple-digit tariffs for 90 days. In addition, China promised to suspend trade countermeasures that restricted its exports of critical metals needed for the production of semiconductors, electronics and US defense.
Meanwhile, on Friday, Trump also announced a doubling of import tariffs on steel and aluminum to 50%.
Although China is the world’s largest steel producer and exporter, it ships very little to the United States after a 25% tariff imposed in 2018 drove most Chinese steel out of the market. China ranks third among aluminum suppliers.
Source: Shuyan Wang and Chen Aizhu | Notícias Agrícolas
