China warns trade talks are futile if Trump imposes new tariffs


Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross visited Beijing for trade negotiations over the weekend, and those talks produced "positive and concrete" results, said a statement from the Chinese government in state-run media Sunday. However, if the Trump administration proceeds with its proposal to impose 25 percent tariffs on $50 billion of Chinese tech products, the statement warned, "all the economic and trade benefits negotiated by both sides are not going to take effect."
Further economic negotiations should be aimed toward mutual benefit and "not waging a trade war," the statement said. Meanwhile, President Trump wrote on Twitter Saturday afternoon that the United States is "almost 800 Billion Dollars a year down on Trade," and thus "can't lose a Trade War!" Read The Week's Jeff Spross on Trump's trade war here.
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Bonnie Kristian was a deputy editor and acting editor-in-chief of TheWeek.com. She is a columnist at Christianity Today and author of Untrustworthy: The Knowledge Crisis Breaking Our Brains, Polluting Our Politics, and Corrupting Christian Community (forthcoming 2022) and A Flexible Faith: Rethinking What It Means to Follow Jesus Today (2018). Her writing has also appeared at Time Magazine, CNN, USA Today, Newsweek, the Los Angeles Times, and The American Conservative, among other outlets.
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