China condemned tariffs launched or threatened by US President Donald Trump at a World Trade Organization meeting on Tuesday, warning that such “tariff shocks” threaten to upend the global trading system and could risk a global recession.
Trump has announced sweeping 10 per cent tariffs on all Chinese imports, prompting Beijing to respond with retaliatory tariffs and to file a WTO dispute against Washington in what could be an early test of Trump’s stance towards the institution.
“These ‘tariff shocks’ heighten economic uncertainty, disrupt global trade, and risk domestic inflation, market distortion or even global recession,” China’s ambassador to the WTO Li Chenggang said at a closed-door meeting of the global trade body, according to a statement.
“Worse, the US unilateralism threatens to upend the rules-based multilateral trading system.”
The WTO discussion, which began late on Tuesday, is the first time that mounting trade frictions will be formally addressed on the agenda of the watchdog’s top decision-making body, the General Council.
It was not immediately clear how other countries – including the United States, which does not yet have a trade ambassador in Geneva – had responded.
