TRADE WAR: China vows it ‘will NEVER give up’ as it rejects Trump’s trade figures

Figures from the American government used by Mr Trump to justify the trade war claim the trade deficit is nearly $419billion (£330million) in 2018. This figure refers to the amount by which the value of US imports from China out value Chinese imports from the US. As reported by Newsweek, Gao Feng, a spokesman for the Commerce Ministry, said: “There are principles in cooperation and there is a bottom line in talks China will never give in on major issues of principle.”

In a statement, the ministry said when taking into consideration services and processing trade, the deficit is $153billion (£121billion).

Edwin Gerwin of the Progressive Policy Institute questioned the method China used to calculate its figure.

Meanwhile, Robert Scott of the Economic Policy Institute doubted the accuracy of the numbers: “There’s a lot of distortion in the trade data that China publishes, the fact of the matter is China still imports about one-fifth from us as much as they export, and these numbers don’t change that fact.”

President Trump has used the numbers when explaining why he levied tariffs against Chinese goods.

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In May, Mr Trump increased tariffs from 10 percent to 25 percent on $200billion (£158billion) worth of goods.

The Chinese responded by placing tariffs of up to 25 percent on $60billion (£47billion) worth of American goods.

They are said to be in the process of creating a list of companies that pose a threat to Chinese businesses.

Mr Trump has threatened to impose even more tariffs on Chinese goods: “Our talks with China — a lot of interesting things are happening. We’ll see what happens, in the meantime, we’re getting 25 percent on $250 billion (£197billion), and I can go up another at least $300 billion (£236billion).”

Tensions have spiralled beyond trade with the US placing telecommunications giant Huawei on a blacklist and calling on allies to not give the firm a role in major networks over concerns that the information transmitted through the networks could be used for espionage by Chinese authorities.

Huawei is mandated by law to share information with the central government.

The US has also gone into military procedures, dispatching a warship to the South China Sea where China has several territorial disputes.

They are also reportedly in the process of selling $2billion (£1.6billion) worth of weapons to Taiwan, whom China regards as a breakaway province.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said: ”We urge the U.S. to fully understand the high sensitivity and serious harm of the issue of arms sales to Taiwan and abide by the one-China principle.”