US tariff hike against China: Intl responses

Editor's note:

The United States on Friday raised tariffs on $200 billion worth of Chinese imports from 10 percent to 25 percent.

Here is a collection of comments on the tariff hike from analysts and business professionals from around the world.

Rene Pastor, foreign editor, China Daily

Global trade is not a zero-sum game of who gets the most benefits. The decision by President Donald Trump to up the ante in a trade dispute by slapping tariffs invites retaliation, as China has threatened to do, and damages a global trading system that in all honesty has lifted all boats in the decades following World War II.

Countries should resist the temptation to treat global trade as purely the arena of winners and losers. The idea is to keep talking with the full knowledge that any country, any trading power, will win some and lose some in those negotiations. The consequences and lessons of history are clear when trade degenerates into a winner-take-all mentality, as was the case during the time of the Great Depression in the 1920s. Everybody lost. We just cannot afford a repeat of that episode in our history.

Mats Harborn, president of the European Union Chamber of Commerce in China

A quarter of our members have exports to the US that were already affected by these ridiculous tariffs. Pushing rates to 25 percent will prove extremely damaging to those companies, and the collateral damage will ripple around the globe.