China signals tough stance on trade as US officials push talks

Dispute has roiled global markets, but world stocks edge higher

BEIJING/ WASHINGTON: China would win any trade war with the United States, the country’s state media said on Thursday, as US officials sought to ease market jitters over escalating tensions between the world’s two biggest economies.

After Washington and Beijing targeted each other with planned steep tariffs, Chinese state media declared that the country never surrendered to external pressure and would prevail in any tit-for-tat on trade. In Washington, US officials publicly encouraged negotiations as a way to ease or avert punishing tariffs and get the two countries off a trade war footing. The dispute has roiled global markets but world stocks edged higher on Thursday as investors responded to signs of an easing of trade tensions by dipping back into riskier assets.

Shares rebounded on Wall Street on Wednesday as US officials talked of negotiations and were up again on Thursday, including in companies such as Boeing and Caterpillar that would be hit hard by the Chinese measures.

“As part of this deal - and I think we are going to get a deal over a period of time - yes, I think these barriers will come down on both sides,” Larry Kudlow, director of the White House National Economic Council, told reporters on Thursday. US President Donald Trump understands that economies do better when trade barriers are reduced rather than raised, Kudlow said, and that tit-for-tat tariffs don’t work for the economy in the long-term.

On Wednesday, China’s ambassador to the United States, Cui Tiankai, told reporters in Washington that Beijing preferred to resolve the trade dispute through negotiations, but China’s official mouthpieces took a tougher stance.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 6^th, 2018.

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