China criticises US V-P Vance for calling its people ‘peasants’
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In an interview with Fox News last week, US Vice-President J.D. Vance defended the Trump administration’s sweeping global tariffs.
PHOTO: REUTERS
Eve Sampson
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BEIJING - China has denounced US Vice-President J.D. Vance’s rhetoric as “ignorant” after he said the United States was borrowing money from “Chinese peasants” in a television interview last week.
“China’s position on Sino-US economic and trade relations has been made very clear,” said Mr Lin Jian, a spokesperson for China’s Foreign Ministry, during a news conference on April 8. “It is surprising and sad to hear the Vice-President say such ignorant and impolite words.”
China has remained defiant in the face of the Trump administration’s tariffs and the latest threat from President Donald Trump of an additional 50 per cent tariff on Chinese goods unless Beijing reverses its retaliatory levies on US imports
China’s Ministry of Commerce on April 8 accused the US of “blackmail”, and said Beijing would “fight to the end”.
In an interview with Fox News last week, Mr Vance defended the Trump administration’s sweeping global tariffs, asking what the “globalist economy” has given the US.
Answering his own question, Mr Vance said America was “incurring a huge amount of debt to buy things that other countries make” for its market.
“We borrow money from Chinese peasants to buy the things those Chinese peasants manufacture,” he said.
Mr Trump’s new policies, condemned by many international leaders, have wreaked havoc on financial markets and spurred experts to issue warnings about inflation.
The spiralling trade war between the two countries is poised to be costly to Americans, who in 2024 purchased US$440 billion (S$596 billion) of goods from China, making the country the second-largest source of imports after Mexico. NYTIMES
