China on Monday called U.S. President Donald Trump’s accusations that Beijing violated the Geneva trade agreement “groundless” and promised to take forceful measures to protect its interests.
The statement from China’s commerce ministry came in response to Trump’s remarks on Friday that China had breached a bilateral deal to roll back tariffs.
The ministry said China had implemented and actively upheld the agreement reached last month in Geneva, while the U.S. had introduced multiple “discriminatory restrictive” measures against China.
These included issuing guidance on AI chip export controls, halting sales of chip design software to China, and revoking visas for Chinese students.
“The U.S. government has unilaterally and repeatedly provoked new economic and trade frictions, exacerbating uncertainty and instability in bilateral economic and trade relations,” the ministry said, without elaborating on what forceful measures it might take in response.
Beijing and Washington agreed in mid-May in Geneva to pause triple-digit tariffs for 90 days. China also promised to lift trade countermeasures that restricted its exports of critical metals used in U.S. semiconductor, electronics and defence production.
On Friday, Trump announced a doubling of import tariffs on steel and aluminium to 50 percent.
While China is the world’s largest steel producer and exporter, it ships very little steel to the United States after a 25% tariff imposed in 2018 shut most Chinese steel out of the market. China ranks third among aluminium suppliers to the U.S.
