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Official Chinese Ministry of Commerce Statement on U.S. Tariffs

Official Chinese Ministry of Commerce Statement on U.S. Tariffs

(Bloomberg) -- This is a translation by Bloomberg of a Chinese Ministry of Commerce statement.

Remarks from Ministry of Commerce spokesperson on U.S. imposing tariffs on $34 billion of Chinese products.

On July 6, the United States began to impose an additional 25 percent tariff on $34 billion of Chinese products. The United States has violated World Trade Organization rules and ignited the largest trade war in economic history. Such tariffs are typical trade bullying, and this action threatens global supply chains and value chains, stalls the global economic recovery, triggers global market turmoil, and will hurt more innocent multinational corporations, enterprises and ordinary consumers. It will harm, not help, America’s businesses and people.

China has promised not to fire the first shot, but to defend the nation’s core interests and the people’s interests we are forced to fight back. We will promptly inform the WTO about the situation and work with countries around the world to defend free trade and the multilateral system. At the same time, China reiterates that we will continue to deepen reform, expand opening up, protect entrepreneurship, strengthen protection of intellectual property rights, and create a favorable business environment for companies from all over the world operating in China. We will continue to assess the impact on companies and work to take effective measures to help business.

To contact Bloomberg News staff for this story: Yinan Zhao in Beijing at yzhao300@bloomberg.net;Xiaoqing Pi in Beijing at xpi1@bloomberg.net;Miao Han in Beijing at mhan22@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Jeffrey Black at jblack25@bloomberg.net, James Mayger

©2018 Bloomberg L.P.

With assistance from Editorial Board