Ankara: On Monday, China issued a stern warning to US President Donald Trump, cautioning that trade protectionism is a dead-end strategy and urging him to avoid escalating tensions into a full-blown trade war. "There are no winners in trade wars or tariff wars," Foreign Ministry spokesman Guo Jiakun stated during a press briefing in Beijing.
According to Anadolu Agency, the warning from Beijing came in direct response to President Trump's announcement about the potential imposition of 25% tariffs on all steel and aluminum imports. The Trump administration had already enacted an additional 10% tariff on Chinese imports, citing concerns over the flow of fentanyl into the United States via Mexico and Canada.
In retaliation, China has levied its own tariffs of up to 15% on US imports, primarily targeting the energy sector and agricultural equipment. These tariffs took effect on Monday. Despite a temporary one-month reprieve granted to Canada and Mexico, Trump has moved forward with tariffs on Chinese imports with no visible progress towards a trade agreement.
A report by the Financial Times suggests that negotiations may have stalled because President Trump was demanding Chinese cooperation on other issues, including pressuring Russia over its invasion of Ukraine and possibly ceding ownership of the popular short video platform TikTok to an American buyer. Fentanyl, a potent opioid, remains a major contributor to deaths among Americans aged 18-45.
In a separate development concerning the China-US rivalry in artificial intelligence, Foreign Ministry spokesman Guo Jiakun discussed the Chinese open-source large model chatbot DeepSeek. He stated that China "actively embraces intelligent transformation, vigorously promotes the innovative development and safety of AI, and supports and encourages enterprises to innovate independently, making positive contributions to the global development of artificial intelligence."
Guo emphasized that China opposes drawing ideological lines, overstretching the concept of national security, and politicizing economic and technological issues. He added that Beijing is willing to strengthen AI exchanges and cooperation with all parties.
Notably, South Korea, Australia, and Taiwan have advised their public employees to cease using DeepSeek, leading to a global tech sell-off. DeepSeek has become the most downloaded free app in the US, surprising investors with its ability to compete with leading AI applications like OpenAI's ChatGPT. Backed by the Chinese hedge fund High-Flyer, DeepSeek launched its DeepSeek-R1 large language model on January 20. The app has also been a target of cyberattacks, which Chinese state-run media claim largely originated from US IP addresses.