BEIJING—China vowed to fight a trade war with the United States “to the end” on Thursday, as tariffs from Washington buffeted the global economy and threatened to hit Beijing’s lagging growth.
Beijing set an ambitious annual growth target of around five percent this week, vowing to make domestic demand its main economic driver as the escalating trade confrontation with the United States hit exports.
US President Donald Trump imposed more blanket tariffs on Chinese imports this week, following a similar move last month — levies expected to hit hundreds of billions of dollars in total trade between the world’s two largest economies.
Commerce Minister Wang Wentao warned that US tariffs threatened to “disrupt the stability of the global industrial supply chain and hinder the development of the global economy”.
“If the United States continues down this wrong path, we will fight to the end,” he told reporters, decrying what he called “unilateralism and bullying” by Washington.
China’s top economic planner Zheng Shanjie acknowledged that “uncertainty in the external environment is further increasing.”
