Trump’s latest tariff threat is a ‘ridiculous’ attempt at intimidation: Chinese state media

Jonathan Ernst | Reuters

President Donald Trump and China’s President Xi Jinping leave after an opera performance at the Forbidden City in Beijing, China, November 8, 2017.

Financial markets have been unnerved for days by the trade fight and Trump’s management of it, with the president’s latest salvo sending U.S. stock futures tumbling and pushing up the safe-haven yen.

Earlier on Friday, the People’s Daily described the U.S. trade action against China as akin to “climbing a tree to catch fish.”

Washington’s attempts at reducing its trade deficit by engaging in a trade war were compounding its mistakes, it added.

“History and reality have repeatedly proved that economic globalisation has provided a strong impetus for the development of international trade and economics,” the newspaper said, adding that the United States was “one of the biggest beneficiaries” of this.

Instead of asking China to reduce its exports to address the trade imbalance, the United States should increase its own exports, the editorial said, adding that Washington was already restricting its exports to China, especially of high-tech products.

In Moscow on Thursday, Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi also accused the United States of picking the “wrong target” with its tariffs against China.

“The United States thought that it would be cheaper to engage in protectionism and it was a miscalculation,” he said, according to comments posted on the Chinese foreign ministry’s
website.

“China and the United States are both big countries in the world and should respect each other and treat each other as equals,” he added.