April 16 \u2013 China\u2019s President Xi Jinping has called on Vietnam to oppose \u201cunilateral bullying\u201d to upkeep a global system of free trade \u2013 though he stopped short of naming the US.<\/p>\n
It comes as Xi is on a so called \u201ccharm offensive\u201d trip across South East Asia, which will also see him visit Malaysia and Cambodia.<\/p>\n
Though the trip was long-planned, it has taken on heightened significance in the wake of a mounting trade war between the US and China. Vietnam was facing US tariffs of up to 46% before the Trump administration issued a 90-day pause last week.<\/p>\n
US President Donald Trump called Xi\u2019s meeting with Vietnamese leaders a ploy to figure out how to \u201cscrew the United States of America\u201d.<\/p>\n
According to state media outlet Xinhua, Xi told Vietnam\u2019s Communist Party Secretary-General To Lam to \u201cjointly oppose unilateral bullying\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe must strengthen strategic resolve\u2026 and uphold the stability of the global free trade system as well as industrial and supply chains,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Stephen Olson, a former US trade negotiator, said Xi\u2019s comments were \u201ca very shrewd tactical move\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhile Trump seems determined to blow up the trade system, Xi is positioning China as the defender of rules-based trade, while painting the US as a reckless rogue nation,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
Speaking to reporters in the Oval office on Monday, Trump said he does not \u201cblame\u201d China or Vietnam but alleged that they were focused on how to harm the US.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s a lovely meeting. Meeting like, trying to figure out, how do we screw the United States of America?\u201d said Trump.<\/p>\n
The world\u2019s two largest economies are locked in an escalating trade battle, with the Trump administration putting tariffs of 145% on most Chinese imports earlier this month. Beijing later responded with its own 125% tariffs on American products coming into China.<\/p>\n
On Saturday, a US customs notice revealed smartphones, computers and some other electronic devices would be excluded from the 125% tariff on goods entering the country from China.<\/p>\n
But Trump later chimed in on social media saying there was no exemption for these products and called such reports about this notice false. Instead, he said that \u201cthey are just moving to a different tariff \u2018bucket’\u201d.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
April 16 \u2013 China\u2019s President Xi Jinping has called on Vietnam to oppose \u201cunilateral bullying\u201d to upkeep a global system of free trade \u2013 though he stopped short of naming the US. It comes as Xi is on a so called \u201ccharm offensive\u201d trip across South East Asia, which will also see him visit Malaysia […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-113728","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","entry"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113728","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=113728"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113728\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=113728"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=113728"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=113728"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}