China warned Friday, February 28, that the US tax by the United States of additional customs duties of 10% on Chinese imports would have “a serious impact” on bilateral anti-Drogue cooperation and accused Washington of “blackmail”. “Pressure, coercion and threats are not the right way to deal with China. Mutual respect is the basic principle,” a spokesman for the Chinese Foreign Ministry.
Beijing has also promised to take “all the necessary countermeasures”: “if the United States persists in going on this path, China will take all the countermeasures necessary to defend its legitimate rights and interests,” warned a spokesman for the Chinese Ministry of Commerce in a statement.
Donald Trump said Thursday that he would impose additional customs duties of 10% on Chinese imports, in addition therefore taxes of the same rate, already imposed at the beginning of the month against products from China. This new measure of the tenant of the White House is due to come into force on Tuesday. It feeds fears of a new trade war between the two largest world economies.
“This is typically what is called wanting to reject the fault on others”
The American president accuses Beijing of laissez-faire in terms of fentanyl traffic, a synthetic opioid that wreaked havoc on American soil. “This is typically what is called wanting to reject the fault of others and flee its responsibilities,” the spokesman for the Chinese trade ministry said this Friday. “China is one of the countries whose policy of combating narcotics is the strictest and most complete in the world” and it actively cooperates “with the United States and other countries of the world” on this subject, he said. “But the United States has since left to ignore this reality,” he said.
The press release also believes that new customs duties will “increase the burden on American companies and consumers and compromise the stability of the world industrial channel”.
The 25 % customs duties promised in Canada and Mexico will also come into force on March 4, Donald Trump said on Thursday. He accuses his neighbors, theoretically protected by a free trade agreement, of promoting the entry of fentanyl to the United States by not securing the border enough. Future customs barriers were originally to come into force in early February.