{"id":134622,"date":"2025-04-22T05:28:14","date_gmt":"2025-04-22T05:28:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/why-china-has-warned-countries-against-appeasing-trump-in-trade-deals-al-jazeera\/"},"modified":"2025-04-22T05:28:14","modified_gmt":"2025-04-22T05:28:14","slug":"why-china-has-warned-countries-against-appeasing-trump-in-trade-deals-al-jazeera","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/why-china-has-warned-countries-against-appeasing-trump-in-trade-deals-al-jazeera\/","title":{"rendered":"Why China has warned countries against \u2018appeasing\u2019 Trump in trade deals – Al Jazeera"},"content":{"rendered":"

China today is a far bigger trading partner than the US for most countries. That limits what Trump can demand of them, experts say.<\/em>
China has warned countries against striking trade deals with the United States at Beijing\u2019s expense, ratcheting up its rhetoric in a spiralling trade war between the world\u2019s two biggest economies.
Responding to reports suggesting that US President Donald Trump\u2019s administration is pressuring other countries to isolate China, a spokesperson for China\u2019s Ministry of Commerce said on Monday that Beijing \u201cwill take countermeasures in a resolute and reciprocal manner\u201d against nations that align with the US against it.
The warning comes as countries prepare for talks with the US to seek exemptions from \u201creciprocal\u201d tariffs that Trump imposed and then later paused<\/a> on about 60 trading partners.
So what\u2019s this latest verbal spat about, how much clout does China wield in global trade and can Trump drive a wedge between other capitals and Beijing?
The Wall Street Journal recently reported that Trump was seeking to use tariff talks to push US economic partners to curb trade with China and rein in Beijing\u2019s manufacturing dominance.
In return, these nations could secure reductions in US levies and trade barriers. The Trump administration has said it is in negotiations with more than 70 countries.
On Monday, China\u2019s Commerce Ministry hit back, warned other nations that \u201cto seek one\u2019s own temporary selfish interests at the expense of others\u2019 interests is to seek the skin of a tiger\u201d. In effect, it argued that those trying to strike deals with the US \u2013 the tiger \u2013 would be eaten up themselves eventually.
The ministry also said China would in turn target all countries that fell in line with US pressure to hurt Beijing.
After Trump suspended his \u201creciprocal tariffs\u201d on major US trading partners on April 9, he ramped them up on China. US trade levies on most Chinese exports have climbed to 145 percent. Beijing has retaliated with duties of its own at 125 percent on US goods.
Trump has long accused China of exploiting the US on trade, casting his tariffs as necessary to revive domestic manufacturing and return jobs to the US. He also wants to use tariffs to finance future tax cuts.
For his part, Chinese President Xi Jinping travelled to three Southeast Asian countries last week<\/a> to bolster regional ties. He called on trading partners, including Vietnam, to oppose unilateral bullying.
\u201cThere are no winners in trade wars and tariff wars,\u201d Xi said in an article published in Vietnamese media, without mentioning the US.
As with other countries in Southeast Asia, Vietnam has been caught in the trade war\u2019s crossfire. It is not only a manufacturing hub itself, but China also frequently uses it to dispatch exports to the US to avoid the tariffs imposed by the first Trump administration on Beijing in 2018.
Elsewhere, the Trump administration has begun talks with East Asian allies over the tariffs with a Japanese delegation visiting Washington, DC, last week and South Korean officials set to arrive this week.
Many countries now find themselves stuck between the world\u2019s two biggest economies \u2013 China, a large source of manufactured goods and a key trading partner, and the US, a crucial export market.
\"US
In a report published in January by the Lowy Institute, a Sydney-based think tank, analysts found that in 2023, about 70 percent of countries imported more from China than they did from the US.
China\u2019s rapid ascent as a trading superpower can be traced back to 2001, the year it joined the World Trade Organization (WTO) and when it started to dominate global manufacturing after years of successful protectionist industrial policies.
During the 2000s, China benefitted from the relocation of international supply chains, turbocharged by substantial inflows of foreign investment, large pools of low-cost labour and an undervalued currency exchange rate.
By 2023, China had become the largest trading partner for at least 60 countries, almost twice as many as for the US, which remained the largest trading partner for 33 economies.
The gap between them is also widening in many countries: The Lowy Institute analysis found that in 2023, 112 economies traded more than twice as much with China as they did with the US, up from 92 in 2018 during Trump\u2019s first trade war<\/a>.
\u201cThe critical dependence China has developed around the world, especially in Asia, means that lots [of trading partners] cannot do without China,\u201d said Alicia Garcia-Herrero, an economist at the investment bank Natixis. \u201cFrom critical minerals to silicon chips, Chinese exports are almost irreplaceable.\u201d<\/span>
In 2018, two years into his first administration, Trump imposed 15 percent tariffs on more than $125bn in Chinese goods, including footwear, smartwatches and flat-screen TVs.
Since then, the US has become an even more important source of demand for non-Chinese exports, especially from Mexico and Vietnam, reflecting the impact of years of US tariffs on China.
Yet if Trump\u2019s aim in part was to hurt Beijing, his first salvoes failed.
Since 2018, many more nations have deepened their trade relations with China \u2013 at the expense of the US.
When China joined the WTO, more than 80 percent of countries had more two-way trade with the US than with China. That had fallen to just 30 percent by 2018, the year of Trump\u2019s first tariffs on China, according to the Lowy Institute analysis.
That trend has only solidified since then: In 2018, 139 nations traded more with China than with the US. By 2023, that number had risen to 145, and about 70 percent of the world\u2019s economies now trade more with China than with the US \u2013 up from just 15 percent in 2001.
\u201cTrump doesn\u2019t seem to understand how important Chinese trade flows have become,\u201d Garcia-Herrero told Al Jazeera. \u201cWhat\u2019s more, he\u2019s not offering much by way of carrots, like more investment, so I don\u2019t think he\u2019ll get what he wants.\u201d
According to Garcia-Herrero, a few countries such as Mexico that have particularly deep trade links with the US, probably will \u201csay no to Chinese imports\u201d.
However, she highlighted that \u201cChina\u2019s presence in supply chains is so massive for most of America\u2019s other trade partners, decoupling is virtually impossible.\u201d
Indeed, around the world, China has become an invaluable source of imports. The European Union, for instance, had a trade deficit with China worth 396 billion euros ($432bn) in 2022, up from 145 billion euros ($165bn) in 2016.
China accounts for 20 percent of EU goods imports. The equivalent figure in Great Britain is 10 percent. Last week, Treasury Secretary Rachel Reeves said it would be \u201cvery foolish\u201d for the UK to engage in less trade with China.
Across the developing world, China\u2019s trade role is just as crucial. Roughly a quarter of Bangladesh\u2019s and Cambodia\u2019s total imports are from China. Nearly a fifth of Nigeria\u2019s and Saudi Arabia\u2019s goods imports come from China.
\u201cTrump\u2019s trade policy is shortsighted,\u201d Garcia-Herrero said. \u201cTrying to pry trade away with China may work in countries where the US has military bases. \u2026 They may have to accept the US\u2019s concerns.\u201d
\u201cBut for most countries, particularly those in the Global South, the more that Trump threatens, the more that countries will go on China\u2019s side.\u201d<\/p>\n

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source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

China today is a far bigger trading partner than the US for most countries. That limits what Trump can demand of them, experts say.China has warned countries against striking trade deals with the United States at Beijing\u2019s expense, ratcheting up its rhetoric in a spiralling trade war between the world\u2019s two biggest economies.Responding to reports […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":134623,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-134622","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-us","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/134622","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=134622"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/134622\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/134623"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=134622"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=134622"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=134622"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}