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China has accused the US of “seriously violating” the trade truce and vowed to take strong measures to defend its interests as tensions between the two powers reignite.
China and the US agreed during talks in Geneva in early May to a deal that would temporarily reduce their tit-for-tat tariffs, which had soared as high as 145 per cent.
President Donald Trump on Friday claimed that China had “totally violated” the agreement, as US officials grew increasingly frustrated with the tepid pace of rare earth exports across the Pacific since the May 12 agreement.
But on Monday, China’s commerce ministry said Washington had introduced “a series of discriminatory and restrictive measures” in recent weeks that undermined the Geneva consensus and harmed “China’s legitimate rights and interests”.
“If the US insists on going its own way and continues to harm China’s interests, China will continue to take strong and resolute measures to safeguard its legitimate rights,” the ministry said.
Among the US actions cited in the statement were warnings against the use of Huawei chips globally, a halt to sales of chip design software to Chinese firms, and the cancellation of visas for Chinese students.
US officials believed the May 12 deal would unwind China’s export restrictions on rare earths that it unveiled in early April, but China has instead kept its export regime in place while only slowly approving shipments to the US.
The critical minerals are widely used in American auto, electronics and defence supply chains with the slow pace of exports to the US posing a growing threat of work stoppages for US manufacturing.
“The US has unilaterally provoked new trade frictions,” China’s commerce ministry said. “Instead of reflecting on its own actions, it has groundlessly accused China of breaching the consensus,” the ministry added.
Trump told reporters on Friday he hoped to resolve the dispute in a call with Chinese President Xi Jinping, an idea he has floated several times in recent months, but which has yet to come to fruition.
