BEIJING: China’s President Xi Jinping urged the European Union on Friday (Apr 11) to join hands with Beijing in resisting “unilateral bullying”, after US President Donald Trump’s tariff onslaught sparked mayhem on world markets.
After equities crumpled and bond markets starting flashing red, Trump this week blinked first in his push to remodel the post-war system of global commerce and froze many tariffs for 90 days.
But he raised them for China to a staggering total of 145 per cent, escalating a trade war between the world’s two top economies and snuffing out a brief rally on financial markets.
As the dollar weakened as well, Trump acknowledged “a transition cost and transition problems,” but dismissed global market turmoil. “In the end it’s going to be a beautiful thing.”
He described the European Union as “very smart” to refrain from retaliatory levies. But the bloc’s chief warned that it still has “wide range of countermeasures” at the ready.
“(The EU) were ready to announce retaliation. And then they heard about what we did with respect to China’,” Trump said.
French President Emmanuel Macron also urged the EU to keep preparing action to counter the tariffs, which are only paused but not scrapped.
“With the European Commission, we must show ourselves as strong: Europe must continue to work on all the necessary counter-measures,” he said on X.
At talks with Spain’s Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez on Friday, state media quoted Xi as saying that China and the EU should simply team up on the issue.
“China and Europe should fulfil their international responsibilities … and jointly resist unilateral bullying practices,” Xi said.
This, he stressed, would not only “safeguard their own legitimate rights and interests, but also … safeguard international fairness and justice”.
