‘Won’t be holding China’s hand’: Aus rejects huge China offer amid trade war with US
Australia has rejected China’s call to “join hands” and resist Donald Trump’s tariffs.
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Australia has rejected China’s offer to “join hands” and fight back against Donald Trump’s tariffs.
The US President announced on Wednesday that he was slapping 125 per cent tariffs on China due to a “lack of respect” after it retaliated by matching US tariffs.
China responded on Thursday, with yet another escalation, bumping up its tariffs on all goods imported from the United States to 84 per cent.
In an opinion piece for the Sydney Morning Herald on Thursday, Chinese Ambassador to Australia Xiao Qian said the only way to stop the “bullying behaviour of the US” was for the whole world to “jointly resist”.
“The international community, including China and Australia, should firmly say no to unilateralism and protectionism, join hands to defend the multilateral trading system, safeguard a fair and free trading environment and promote the development of economic globalisation in the direction of greater openness, inclusiveness, universality and balance,” the ambassador wrote.
“Under the new circumstances, China stands ready to join hands with Australia and the international community to jointly respond to the changes of the world, resolutely uphold international equity and justice, defend the multilateral trading system, ensure the stability of global industrial and supply chains, and maintain an open and co-operative international environment.”
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However, Defence Minister Richard Marles was quick to reject the offer, saying Australia – which was hit with 10 per cent tariffs on goods imported to the US – would focus on diversifying its trade.
“We’re not about to make common cause with China, that’s not what’s going to happen here,” Mr Marles told 9News.
“I don’t think we’ll be holding China’s hand,” he added.
“We don’t want to see a trade war between America and China, to be clear, but our focus is on actually diversifying our trade.”
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Prime Minister Anthony Albanese also weighed on China’s call to “join hands”, telling reporters Australia “will speak for ourselves”.
“Australia’s position is that free and fair trade is good,” he said at a press conference on Thursday when asked about the offer.
Mr Albanese later noted Australia’s “trade relationship with China is an important one”.
“Trade represents one in four of Australian jobs and China is by a long distance our major trading partner,” he said.
“We, of course, restored an excess of 20 billion dollars of trade exports to China where there were impediments.”
Mr Trump abruptly paused higher tariffs on most countries on Wednesday after admitting they made the markets nervous.
He also lowered his reciprocal tariffs to 10 per cent.
However, the President doubled down on a spiralling trade war with China, raising tariffs on the nation to 125 per cent after it had retaliated by matching the US’ tariffs against it.
“Based on the lack of respect that China has shown to the World’s Markets, I am hereby raising the Tariff charged to China by the United States of America to 125 per cent, effective immediately,” Mr Trump wrote on Truth Social.
“At some point, hopefully in the near future, China will realise that the days of ripping off the USA, and other Countries, is no longer sustainable or acceptable.”
Speaking at a press conference outside the White House, US Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent said the drastic change to the tariff policy was Mr Trump’s “strategy all along”.
“You might even say that he goaded China into a bad position,” he said.
“They responded. They have shown themselves to the world to be the bad actor.”
Mr Bessent said the US is willing to cooperate with trading partners who did not retaliate.
“It wasn’t a hard message: don’t retaliate, things will turn out well.”
US levies on Australia appear to unchanged pending negotiations.
– With AFP
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Originally published as ‘Won’t be holding China’s hand’: Aus rejects huge China offer amid trade war with US
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