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Beijing threatens countermeasures against countries "appeasing" US
While the rest of the world has been slapped with a blanket 10 percent tariff, China faces levies of up to 145 percent on many products. Beijing has responded with duties of 125 percent on US goods.
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Chinese President Xi Jinping speaks during a meeting with foreign business leaders at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on March 28, 2025. (Reuters/Florence Lo)
C
hina on Monday hit out at other countries making trade deals with the United States at Beijing's expense, promising countermeasures against those who "appease" Washington in the blistering tariff war.
While the rest of the world has been slapped with a blanket 10 percent tariff, China faces levies of up to 145 percent on many products. Beijing has responded with duties of 125 percent on US goods.
A number of countries are now engaged in negotiations with the United States to lower tariffs, parallel to Washington's full trade war against top US economic rival China.
But Beijing warned nations on Monday not to seek a deal with the United States that compromised its interests.
"Appeasement will not bring peace, and compromise will not be respected," a spokesperson for Beijing's commerce ministry said in a statement.
"To seek one's own temporary selfish interests at the expense of others' interests is to seek the skin of a tiger," Beijing said.
That approach, it warned, "will ultimately fail on both ends and harm others".
"China firmly opposes any party reaching a deal at the expense of China's interests," the spokesperson said.
"If such a situation occurs, China will never accept it and will resolutely take reciprocal countermeasures," they added.
US President Donald Trump's tariff blitz has seen Washington and Beijing impose eye-watering duties on imports from the other, fanning a standoff between the economic superpowers that has sparked global recession fears and sent markets into a tailspin.
Trump said Thursday that the United States was in talks with China on tariffs, adding that he was confident the world's largest economies could make a deal to end the bitter trade war.
"Yeah, we're talking to China," Trump told reporters in the Oval Office. "I would say they have reached out a number of times."
"I think we're going to make a very good deal with China," he said at the White House.
China has vowed to fight a trade war "to the end" and has not confirmed that it is in talks with Washington, though it has called for dialogue.
It has slammed what it calls "unilateralism and protectionism" by the United States -- and warned about an international order reverting to the "law of the jungle".
"Where the strong prey on the weak, all countries will become victims," Beijing said Monday.
