Beijing says China-US trade ‘mutually beneficial’

ISTANBUL

China said on Monday that trade between Washington and Beijing is “mutually beneficial,” noting that it “never deliberately pursues a trade surplus.”

Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning told a press conference in Beijing that the current US-China trade is the result of market forces, with multiple factors at play including the two countries’ economic structures and trade policies as well as the position of the US dollar.

“China never deliberately pursues a trade surplus. In fact, the US has made huge profits from Sino-US trade,” the spokeswoman said.

"If you look at the breakdown of statistics, the exports of China-based US companies are also counted as China’s trade surplus. The high-quality products at reduced cost exported by China to the US have essentially raised the purchasing power of US consumers, and created a huge amount of jobs in the US, particularly in sectors such as transport, wholesale, retail and e-commerce. By the way, the US continues to run a huge surplus in trade in services."

The spokeswoman said China-US trade and economic ties benefit both sides. "If one had been ripping the other off, there is no way the ties would have come this far as we see today," Mao said.

To call the economic ties a “rip-off” and pursue absolute reciprocity in trade goes against the most basic economic common sense, the spokeswoman said, adding: "No matter what the purported rationale is, it cannot hide the US aim of politicizing and weaponizing trade issues to contain and go after China."

China has introduced retaliatory tariffs on US goods, including agricultural exports, in response to US President Donald Trump slapping an additional 10% levy on all Chinese products.