China is digging in for a protracted trade war with the U.S., warning it will cooperate with other international partners to face down Donald Trump’s “unilateral bullying.”
In a readout of a Friday morning politburo meeting, published by state media outlets, officials said “the impact of external shocks has increased” on the Asian manufacturing behemoth’s economy, in reference to recent White House tariffs of up to 145% on Chinese-made goods.
China has responded to the Trump administration’s new measures with 125% retaliatory tariffs. As the U.S. third-largest supplier of pork, Beijing has also now cancelled an estimated 12,000 metric tons of shipments of the meat to the U.S., according to U.S. Department of Agriculture data released Thursday.
The Chinese Communist Party said in its Friday readout it would focus on “work with the international community to actively uphold multilateralism and oppose unilateral bullying practices,” as well as outlining a series of domestic interventions to help protect businesses from the shock of the new White House measures.
Friday’s meeting comes amid speculation that Beijing may have been considering exemptions on certain U.S. products, bolstered by reports of U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent apparently having said he expects a “de-escalation” between the economic superpowers during a closed-door meeting with private sector investors on Tuesday.
A spokesperson for the Chinese commerce department slammed these reports as false on Thursday, claiming “there are currently no economic and trade negotiations between China and the United States.”
President Trump swiftly contradicted those comments just hours later, claiming his officials are indeed in ongoing talks with their Chinese counterparts, and slamming U.S. media outlets for what he described as deliberately misleading coverage of the mounting tensions.
“They had meetings this morning and we’ve been meeting with China,” he told a press conference on Thursday afternoon. “And so I think you have… as usual, I think you have your reporting wrong.”
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