China’s Ministry of Commerce strongly criticized the decision by President Trump to impose 10 percent tariffs on Chinese exports to the United States.
The spokesperson’s office at the ministry said in a statement Sunday that China deplored the American action and would file a legal case against it at the World Trade Organization. China also “will take corresponding countermeasures to firmly safeguard its rights and interests,” the statement said, without specifying what those might be.
The W.T.O. has lost much of its ability to handle legal challenges, as the United States has blocked the appointment of judges since President Trump’s first term. The appellate body of the W.T.O. lost judges as their terms expired and has not been able to form a quorum to hear cases since the end of 2019.
W.T.O. can still form panels to compile reports on the merits of cases. But those reports can no longer go to the organization’s appellate body for a legally binding decision, which allows the country that wins to impose tariffs on the losing side.
When President Trump imposed tariffs on Chinese goods during his first term, China responded each time with tariffs on American exports, not waiting for W.T.O. authorization. But because China sells far more to the United States than it buys, China quickly ran out of American goods to put tariffs on.
On Saturday, President Trump said he imposed the tariffs on China in part to make it stop the flow of fentanyl and its ingredients to Mexico.
In China’s response, the Ministry of Commerce urged the United States to “view and handle its fentanyl and other issues in an objective and rational manner, rather than threatening other countries with tariffs.” And a little later, China’s foreign ministry defended its record on the issue, saying that China had led the world in 2019 when it imposed stringent regulations on fentanyl-related substances.
The Chinese government has argued that the true cause of an epidemic of fentanyl deaths in the United States is an American failure to curb drug addiction, rather than the large-scale production or export by China of chemicals used mainly by illegal labs in Mexico to make fentanyl, a synthetic opioid.
The commerce ministry’s statement concluded with a signal that China still wants a stable relationship with the United States, calling on Washington to “engage in frank dialogue, strengthen cooperation and manage differences on the basis of equality, mutual benefit and mutual respect.”
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