China vows it won’t back down after Trump’s latest tariff threat
Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross signaled there’s more pain ahead unless China changes its economic system, as the Asian nation repeated it will never surrender to U.S. trade threats.
“We have to create a situation where it’s more painful for them to continue their bad practices than it is to reform,” Ross said in an interview on Fox Business Network on Thursday. The U.S. will keep turning up the pressure on China for as long as the country refuses to level the economic playing field, said Ross.
“The reason for the tariffs to begin with was to try and convince the Chinese to modify their behavior. Instead they have been retaliating. So the president now feels that it’s potentially time to put more pressure on, in order to modify their behavior,” he said.
President Donald Trump fanned tensions by ordering his trade office to considering imposing a 25 percent duty on $200 billion worth of Chinese goods, up from an initial 10 percent rate. The move for a higher tariff, which was announced Wednesday, is intended to bring China back to the negotiating table for talks over U.S. demands that China make structural changes to its economy and narrow the U.S. trade deficit. The negotiations broke down last month.
(read more: Bloomberg)
