China says it has full confidence in ability to manage US trade issues

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By Kevin Krolicki

MALIPO, China (Reuters) -China has full confidence in its ability to manage U.S. trade issues, Vice Foreign Minister Hua Chunying said on Friday, a day before officials from both sides are set to meet in Switzerland to discuss the tariffs they have imposed on each other.

“We have no fear,” Hua told a small group of reporters at a middle school in a rural county in southwestern China, adding that the trade policy of the U.S. administration cannot be sustained.

The weekend talks involving top U.S. and Chinese economic and trade officials are widely seen as a first step towards resolving a trade war that has disrupted the global economy. President Donald Trump said on Thursday that the U.S. tariffs on Beijing of 145% would likely come down.

“We have full confidence,” Hua said during a Beijing-organised trip to Malipo county to showcase China’s efforts to build up rural economies.

“We do not want any kind of war with any country. But we have to face up to the reality. As you can see, people have full confidence in our capability to overcome all the difficulties.”

Trump’s tariffs on many of the United States’ trading partners, including China, are increasingly weighing on a world economy which for decades had benefited from predictable and relatively free trade.

Many economists are calling the Trump tariffs a “demand shock” to the world economy which, by making imports more expensive for American businesses and consumers, will sap activity elsewhere.

“What the United States is doing cannot be sustained,” Hua said. “Ordinary people in the U.S. already feel suffering from the tariff war.”

The U.S. administration will come back to “normal”, she said.

(Reporting by Kevin Krolicki; Writing by Ryan Woo; Editing by Muralikumar Anantharaman and Stephen Coates)