China urges US to ease trade tensions via ‘equal dialogue’

China urges the United States to settle its trade dispute with the Asian powerhouse through "equal dialogue."

A senior Chinese official from the country's General Administration of Customs (GAC) on Monday called on the United States to resolve trade differences between the two countries via equal dialogue.

The deputy head of the GAC, at a press conference in Beijing, responded to questions asked by reporters regarding the escalating tariff war between China and the US.

Wang Lingjun said despite the continued high tensions and new challenges posed by the fresh tariffs slapped by Washington, China-US trade ties has kept on expanding in the first three months of 2025.

The Chinese official said import and export volumes had increased four percent in the first quarter, reaching 1.11 trillion yuan (about $152.2 bn).

He attributed the continued growth of mutual businesses of the two countries to strong internal trade dynamics that existed in the two nations.

The deputy head of the GAC pointed out that the economic relationship between the two countries was founded on mutual benefit, and shaped by the inherent principles of economic laws.

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Chinese President Xi Jinping warns that there would be “no winners” in a trade war.

The Chinese official, however, also pointed out that Washington's use of tariffs as a weapon for staging a trade war against its global business partners under various pretexts will inevitably exert negative impacts on international trade.

He called the misuse of tariffs by US President Donald Trump "bullying" that will eventually damage bilateral trade between China and the United States.

"The United States' so-called 'reciprocal tariffs' subvert the existing international economic and trade order, and place the interests of the US above the public interests of the international community. This is a typical act of tariff bullying, which seriously violates the rules of the World Trade Organization, severely undermines the rules-based multilateral trading system, and heavily impacts the stability of the global economic order," said Wang.

Wang said "US tariff bullying and hegemony" has led to widespread opposition and result in the future isolation of the Americans.

"What the US government has done has aroused widespread opposition across the world. China has resolutely taken countermeasures and will continue to work with all parties to oppose US tariff bullying and hegemony, as well as jointly defend the multilateral trading system and economic globalization. We urge the U.S. to immediately correct its wrongdoings and resolve trade differences through equal dialogue, in accordance with the principle of mutual respect," Wang said.

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US President Donald Trump has declared a 90-day pause on tariffs, but notably excluded China from the delay.

Chinese President Xi Jinping warned on Monday that the trade war launched by Trump against China had “no winners”.

China blasted the American leader, dismissing his trade war as a "joke". In an article run by Vietnam’s state-run Nhan Dan paper on Monday, Xi reiterated his belief that a “trade war and tariff war will produce no winner, and protectionism will lead nowhere.”

Washington’s ineffective tariffs “will become a joke in the history of the world economy,” a Chinese Finance Ministry spokesman said in a statement.

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