Chinese President Xi Jinping chats with President Donald Trump during a welcome ceremony in Beijing on Nov. 9, 2017.
AP Photo | Andy Wong
A Chinese official tabloid editor followed by Wall Street for insight took a shot at President Donald Trump’s latest threat to impose tariffs on all Mexican imports.
“Some day, the White House will be named ‘tariff museum’ by history,” said Hu Xijin, editor-in-chief of the Global Times, a tabloid under the People’s Daily which is the official newspaper of the Communist Party of China. He has been a prolific commentator on the ongoing U.S.-China trade war, followed by many Wall Street traders and market participants.
Hu called the U.S. “so imaginative” in using tariffs on Mexico to curb illegal immigration. Trump once called himself a “tariff man” to toughen his rhetoric amid intensifying tensions with China.
His comment came after the U.S. announced to slap a 5% tariff on all Mexican imports from June 10 and more duties will be added if Mexico does not take action to “reduce or eliminate the number of illegal aliens” crossing into the U.S., the White House said Thursday.
Trump’s trade advisor Peter Navarro told CNBC on Friday that Trump’s threat tied to the president’s declaration of a national emergency at the southern border.
Many policy analysts believe Trump’s Mexican tariffs could hurt the chance of a China trade deal as he lost reliability to honor an agreement.
China said Friday it will establish a list of unreliable entities of foreign companies and people that “seriously damage” the interests of domestic firms. It also reportedly stopped purchases of U.S. soybeans and threatened to cut off rare earth supply to the U.S.