By Joe Cash
BEIJING- China’s state media warned US President-elect Donald Trump his pledge to slap additional tariffs on Chinese goods over fentanyl flows could drag the world’s top two economies into a mutually destructive tariff war.
Trump, who takes office on Jan. 20, said on Monday he would impose “an additional 10 percent tariff, above any additional tariffs” on imports from China until Beijing clamped down on trafficking of the chemical precursors used to make the deadly drug.
The two superpowers are setting out their positions ahead of the former president’s return to the White House. Trump’s first term resulted in a trade war that uprooted global supply chains and hurt every economy as inflation and borrowing costs shot up.
Editorials in Chinese communist party mouthpieces China Daily and the Global Times late on Tuesday warned the next occupant of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue to not make China a “scapegoat” for the US fentanyl crisis or “take China’s goodwill for granted regarding anti-drug cooperation”.
“The excuse the president-elect has given to justify his threat of additional tariffs on imports from China is farfetched,” China Daily said.
“There are no winners in tariff wars. If the US continues to politicize economic and trade issues by weaponizing tariffs, it will leave no party unscathed.”
Economists have begun downgrading their growth targets for China’s $19 trillion economy for 2025 and 2026 in anticipation of further tariffs promised by Trump during the election campaign, and are warning Americans to brace for an increase in the cost of living.
“For now the only thing we know for sure is that the risks in this area are high,” said Louis Kuijs, chief Asia economist at S&P Global Ratings, which on Sunday lowered its China growth forecast for 2025 and 2026 to 4.1 percent and 3.8 percent, respectively.
“What we assumed in our baseline is an across-the-board (tariff) increase from around 14 percent now to 25 percent. Thus, what we assumed is a bit more than the 10 percent on all imports from China.”
Trump is threatening Beijing with far higher tariffs than the 7.5 percent -25 percent levied on Chinese goods during his first term.
“China already has a template for dealing with the previous US tariff policy,” the Global Times quoted Gao Lingyun, an analyst at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences in Beijing, as saying. – Reuters
