China warned Tuesday that “no one will win a trade war” after US President-elect Donald Trump vowed to impose sweeping tariffs on goods from China and elsewhere in response to illegal drug trade and immigration.
US president-elect Donald Trump. File photo: The White House/Flickr.
“China believes that China-US economic and trade cooperation is mutually beneficial in nature,” Liu Pengyu, a spokesman for China’s embassy in the United States, said in an email to AFP.
In a series of posts to his Truth Social account, Trump on Monday vowed to hit some of the United States’ largest trading partners with duties on all goods entering the country.
He said he would also be slapping China with a 10 percent tariff, “above any additional Tariffs,” in response to what he said was its failure to tackle fentanyl smuggling.
Asked on Tuesday whether Beijing had reached out to Trump’s team for talks, foreign ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning said: “As a principle, we are open to maintaining dialogue and communication.”
Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Mao Ning. File Photo: China Gov’t.
Tariffs are a key part of Trump’s economic agenda, with the Republican vowing wide-ranging duties on allies and adversaries alike while he was on the campaign trail.
Washington has long accused Beijing of complicity in the deadly fentanyl trade that has ravaged communities across the country.
The embassy in Washington’s Liu rebuffed those claims in his statement, detailing steps that Beijing was taking to help curb the trade.
“All these prove that the idea of China knowingly allowing fentanyl precursors to flow into the United States runs completely counter to facts and reality,” he said.
