BEIJING warned today that it was ready to hit back at the United States if it harmed China’s economic interests, fuelling fears of a trade war after President Donald Trump unveiled steel and aluminium tariffs.

Trump’s announcement on Thursday sparked a flurry of counter-threats from other nations but its main trade rival, China, had avoided any overt warnings of potential retaliation until now.

“China doesn’t want a trade war with the US,” Zhang Yesui, spokesman for the National People’s Congress, told a news conference today, the eve of the rubber-stamp Parliament’s annual session.

“But if the US takes actions that hurt Chinese interests, China will not sit idly by and will take necessary measures.”

Zhang warned that “policies informed by misjudgment or wrong perceptions will hurt relations and bring consequences no side wants to see”.

Trump’s announcement came as President Xi Jinping’s top economic aide, Liu He, met with US officials at the White House this week to discuss the fraught economic relationship.

During his visit, according to the official Xinhua news agency, Liu and his hosts “agreed that the two countries should settle their trade disputes by cooperation rather than confrontation”.

Since announcing plans to impose a 25% tariff on steel imports and 10% on aluminum, Trump has shrugged off threats from other nations, boasting on Friday that “trade wars are good, and easy to win”.

China has been the main target of Trump’s ire over the US trade deficit since his presidential campaign, but its steel and aluminum exports to the US are minimal.

While China is the world’s largest steel producer, it accounts for less than 1% of US imports and sells only 10% of its wrought aluminum abroad.

Steel producers in Canada, Brazil, Mexico, South Korea, and Turkey rely far more heavily on the US market.

“The American action to put sanctions on other countries’ reasonable steel and aluminum exports in the name of harming national security is groundless,” Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said yesterday.

Some US allies, like Canada and Australia, had hoped to be spared the tariffs. A US official said Friday no countries would be exempt, but added that possible exemptions to the measures would be considered on a case-by-case basis. – AFP, March 4, 2018.