• 6 years ago
With their trade spat threatening to spill over into an all-out trade war,... U.S. President Donald Trump has attempted to take the back-and-forth rhetoric with China down a notch.
He has heaped blame -- not on the Chinese -- but on previous U.S. administrations,... who he says got the U.S. into the problem in the first place.
Lee Seung-jae reports.
U.S. President Donald Trump,... who just last month, stated that "trade wars are good, and easy to win",... tried to cool economic anxieties over the huge Chinese tariffs imposed on the U.S.
He took to Twitter on Wednesday,... saying the U.S. is "not in a trade war with China",... adding that "the war was lost many years ago by the by the foolish, or incompetent people who represented the U.S."
President Trump went on to say that the U.S. has a trade deficit with China of 500 billion U.S. dollars a year,... with intellectual property theft amounting to another 300-billion.
He was apparently referring to a deficit of 506-billion dollars in Chinese exports to the U.S. last year,... something Trump touched upon during a Cabinet meeting a day earlier.

"Again, our relationship is very good with China and we intend to keep it that way, but we have to do something to seriously relieve that trade deficit. We can't have a 500 billion dollar a year trade deficit. We also have the theft of intellectual property and that probably is in the neighborhood of 200 to 300 billion dollars a year."

U.S. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross said on Wednesday that China's recent tariffs on U.S. exports "should not surprise anyone",... adding he was "a little surprised Wall Street was so surprised."
According to Ross, China's new tariffs do not represent a threat to the United States as "it amounts to about three-tenths of a percent" of U.S. GDP.
In response to the trade spat,... China's Vice Minister of Commerce said that, while Beijing is trying to avoid a trade war,... they will stand and fight if one starts.

"China does not want a trade war because there will be no winner in a trade war. If someone insists on starting a trade war, China will fight till the end. China's stance has been consistent regarding the channels of consultation and communication, the door is always open for negotiation and consultation."

The remarks come as China imposed its own 25-percent tariff on 50-billion dollars worth of U.S. exports,... which will affect 106 products, including aircraft, cars and soybeans.
As the world watches on,... fears are growing that the intensifying trade spat between the two economic superpowers will indeed turn into a full-blown trade war.
Lee Seung-jae, Arirang News.

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