China said on Saturday “the market has spoken” in rejecting US President Donald Trump’s tariffs, and called on Washington for “equal-footed consultation” after global markets plunged in reaction to the trade levies that drew Chinese retaliation.
Several Chinese commerce associations in industries from healthcare and textiles to electronics also issued statements on Saturday calling for unity in exploring alternative markets and saying the tariffs would worsen inflation in the United States.
Hong Kong Financial Secretary Paul Chan told public broadcaster RTHK, however, Hong Kong would not impose separate countermeasures, citing the need for the city to remain “free and open”.
“The market has spoken,” Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Guo Jiakun said in a post on Facebook on Saturday. He also posted a picture capturing Friday’s falls on US markets, Reuters reported.
Trump introduced additional 34% tariffs on Chinese goods as part of steep levies imposed on most US trade partners, bringing the total duties on China this year to 54%.
Trump also closed a trade loophole that had allowed low-value packages from China to enter the US duty-free.
This prompted retaliation from China on Friday, including extra levies of 34% on all US goods and export curbs on some rare earths, escalating the trade war between the world’s two largest economies.
Global stock markets plummeted following China’s retaliation and Trump’s comments on Friday that he would not change course, extending sharp losses that followed Trump’s initial tariff announcement earlier in the week and marking the biggest losses since the pandemic. For the week, the S&P 500 was down 9%.
“Now is the time for the US to stop doing the wrong things and resolve the differences with trading partners through equal-footed consultation,” Guo wrote in English.
China’s chamber of commerce, representing traders in food products, called on “China’s food and agricultural products import and export industry to unite and strengthen cooperation to jointly explore domestic and foreign markets”.
Hong Kong’s Chan said it strongly opposes Trump’s actions and would persist in being “free and open”.
“Allowing a free flow of capital and acting as a free port are our advantages, and this will not change,” Chan told public broadcaster RTHK.
“The rules-based multilateral trading system is our core,” he said.
