China’s Ministry of Commerce accused President Trump on Thursday of ignoring World Trade Organization rules when he imposed tariffs against China and other countries without first getting permission from the international organization.
[Read more: WTO to probe legality of US steel and aluminum tariffs]
“China has emphasized many times that the investigation and measures the U.S. took are based on its domestic laws and are to implement unilateralism and protectionism, which has violated every promise it has made to the World Trade Organization members and has ignored and vandalized the rules and regulations,” said ministry spokesman Gao Feng.
Gao was responding to an update on the Trump administration’s push to impose tariffs against China. The administration says China continues to flaunt intellectual property rights rules and requires U.S. companies to produce goods in China as a condition of selling there.
The administration’s updated report said that despite several rounds of bilateral negotiations, China has still “failed to take any substantive actions to address U.S. concerns.”
The Trump administration is threatening to impose tariffs on all Chinese imports without improvement, but Gao said the update was “a new round of groundless accusations against China and China will not accept it,” according to China’s state-run news outlet China Daily.
The trade war between the U.S. and China is one of several reasons why the U.S. stock market has struggled this year. However, Trump said Thursday in Florida that he continues to think China wants to find a way out of the fight.
“China very much wants to take a deal,” he said.
