Beijing is “evaluating” an offer from Washington to hold talks over US President Donald Trump’s 145 percent tariffs, the Chinese Ministry of Commerce said yesterday, although it warned the US not to engage in “extortion and coercion.”
Washington and Beijing have been locked in a cat-and-mouse game over tariffs, with both sides unwilling to be seen to back down in a trade war that has roiled global markets and upended supply chains.
The commerce ministry said the US has approached China to seek talks over Trump’s tariffs and Beijing’s door was open for discussions, signaling a potential de-escalation in the trade war. The statement comes a day after a social media account linked to Chinese state media said Washington had been seeking to start talks, and a week after Trump claimed discussions were already underway, which Beijing denied.
Photo: AFP
“The US has recently taken the initiative on many occasions to convey information to China through relevant parties, saying it hopes to talk with China,” the statement said, adding that Beijing was “evaluating this.”
“Attempting to use talks as a pretext to engage in coercion and extortion would not work,” it added.
The US should be prepared to take action in “correcting erroneous practices” and cancel unilateral tariffs, the ministry said, adding that Washington needed to show “sincerity” in negotiations.
The punishing US tariffs on many Chinese products saw Beijing respond last month with levies on imports of US goods of 125 percent, as Beijing labelled Trump’s tariff strategy “a joke.”
The tit-for-tat increases stand to make goods trade between the world’s two largest economies impossible, analysts said, with import duties beyond about 35 percent potentially wiping out Chinese exporters’ profit margins and making US products in China similarly exorbitant.
China has repeatedly denied it is seeking to negotiate a way out of the tariffs with the US, appearing instead to be betting that Washington would make the first move.
Trump’s decision to single out Beijing for hefty import duties comes at a particularly difficult time for China, which is struggling with deflation due to sluggish economic growth and a prolonged property crisis.
Beijing has expressed its anger at the tariffs, which it says are tantamount to bullying and cannot stop the rise of the world’s second-largest economy. Alongside leveraging its propaganda machine to hit back at the duties, China has quietly created a list of US-made products it would exempt from its retaliatory 125 percent tariffs — including select pharmaceuticals, microchips and jet engines — Reuters has reported.
As tensions between both sides fester, the Trump administration yesterday ended US duty-free access for low-value shipments from China and Hong Kong, known as “de minimis” exemptions.
On the US side, officials, including US Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent and White House economic adviser Kevin Hassett, have expressed hope for progress in easing trade tensions.
“I am confident that the Chinese will want to reach a deal. And as I said, this is going to be a multi-step process. First, we need to de-escalate, and then ... we will start focusing on a larger trade deal,” Bessent said in an interview with Fox Business Network this week.
Trump said on Wednesday he believed there was a “very good chance” his administration could do a deal with China, hours after Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) called on officials to take action to adjust to changes in the international environment, without explicitly mentioning the US.
Taiwanese suppliers to Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC, 台積電) are expected to follow the contract chipmaker’s step to invest in the US, but their relocation may be seven to eight years away, Minister of Economic Affairs J.W. Kuo (郭智輝) said yesterday. When asked by opposition Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Niu Hsu-ting (牛煦庭) in the legislature about growing concerns that TSMC’s huge investments in the US will prompt its suppliers to follow suit, Kuo said based on the chipmaker’s current limited production volume, it is unlikely to lead its supply chain to go there for now. “Unless TSMC completes its planned six
Intel Corp has named Tasha Chuang (莊蓓瑜) to lead Intel Taiwan in a bid to reinforce relations between the company and its Taiwanese partners. The appointment of Chuang as general manager for Intel Taiwan takes effect on Thursday, the firm said in a statement yesterday. Chuang is to lead her team in Taiwan to pursue product development and sales growth in an effort to reinforce the company’s ties with its partners and clients, Intel said. Chuang was previously in charge of managing Intel’s ties with leading Taiwanese PC brand Asustek Computer Inc (華碩), which included helping Asustek strengthen its global businesses, the company
Power supply and electronic components maker Delta Electronics Inc (台達電) yesterday said second-quarter revenue is expected to surpass the first quarter, which rose 30 percent year-on-year to NT$118.92 billion (US$3.71 billion). Revenue this quarter is likely to grow, as US clients have front-loaded orders ahead of US President Donald Trump’s planned tariffs on Taiwanese goods, Delta chairman Ping Cheng (鄭平) said at an earnings conference in Taipei, referring to the 90-day pause in tariff implementation Trump announced on April 9. While situations in the third and fourth quarters remain unclear, “We will not halt our long-term deployments and do not plan to
TikTok abounds with viral videos accusing prestigious brands of secretly manufacturing luxury goods in China so they can be sold at cut prices. However, while these “revelations” are spurious, behind them lurks a well-oiled machine for selling counterfeit goods that is making the most of the confusion surrounding trade tariffs. Chinese content creators who portray themselves as workers or subcontractors in the luxury goods business claim that Beijing has lifted confidentiality clauses on local subcontractors as a way to respond to the huge hike in customs duties imposed on China by US President Donald Trump. They say this Chinese decision, of which Agence
RSS