Business reporter, BBC News
Getty ImagesThe UK government has hit back at suggestions the tariff agreement it reached with the US last week could be damaging to China.
It said there was “no such thing as a veto on Chinese investment” in the deal.
The UK-US agreement rowed back on big hikes in tariffs on metals and cars imposed by President Donald Trump, but it also included conditions requiring the UK to “promptly meet” US demands on the “security of the supply chains” of steel and aluminium products exported to America.
Beijing fears this could see it being excluded from supplying US-bound goods to the UK, telling the Financial Times it was a “basic principle” that bilateral trade deals should not target other countries.
At a regular press conference on Tuesday China’s foreign ministry spokesperson was asked about the UK’s trade agreements with the US and India.
Lin Jian said: “As for the trade agreement… between the UK and relevant countries, I would like to point out that cooperation between countries should not target or harm the interests of third parties.”
China is the world’s second biggest economy and the UK’s fifth biggest trading partner. In 2024 total bilateral trade hit £98.4bn.
In response to the latest comments from China, the UK government said the agreement with the US was “in the national interest to secure thousands of jobs across key sectors, protect British businesses and lay the groundwork for greater trade in the future”.
Any “external provisions” in the agreement were “not designed to undermine mutually beneficial economic relations with any third country”, it said.
“As the Chief Secretary to the Treasury clearly stated, there is no such thing as a veto on Chinese investment in this trade deal.”
It added that “trade and investment with China remain important to the UK.”
Under the UK-US deal Trump’s blanket 10% tariffs on imports from countries around the world still applies to most UK goods entering the US.
But the deal has reduced or removed tariffs on some of the UK’s exports, including steel and aluminium.
The terms of the agreement say the UK will “work to promptly meet US requirements on the security of the supply chains of steel and aluminium products intended for export to the United States and on the nature of ownership of relevant production facilities”.
‘Total reset’
The US and China have been engaged in a tariffs war since the beginning of this year.
The US buys much more from China ($440bn) than it sells to it ($145bn), which is something Trump has long been unhappy with.
His reasoning in part for introducing tariffs, and higher ones on countries which sell more to the US than they buy, is to encourage US consumers to buy more American-made goods, increase the amount of tax raised and boost manufacturing jobs.
However, on Monday, Trump said talks over the weekend between the US and China had resulted in a “total reset” in terms of trade between the two countries, with tariffs either being cut or suspended on both sides.
The result is that additional US tariffs on Chinese imports – that’s the extra tariffs imposed in this recent stand-off – will fall from 145% to 30%, while recently-hiked Chinese tariffs on some US imports will fall from 125% to 10%.
The move is seen as helping to defuse the trade war between the world’s two biggest economies.
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