Imposing additional tariffs on China will not only fail to reduce the overall trade deficit of the United States, but will instead lead to increased import costs and see the deficit widen further, an official with China's Ministry of Commerce said on Wednesday.
The official made the remarks when responding to media questions regarding a white paper released on the same day by China's State Council Information Office, which sought to clarify the facts and elaborate on China's position on relevant issues concerning China-U.S. economic and trade relations.
While the U.S. believes that its substantial trade deficit has been causing it to "incur losses" in recent years, the proportion of the U.S. trade deficit attributable to China has in fact declined, while its deficit with the rest of the world has increased, the official stressed.
Facts show that raising tariffs on China has not succeeded in narrowing the U.S. trade deficit. Instead, it has raised import costs and further widened the deficit, the official added.
The trade balance in goods between China and the United States is both an inevitable result of the structural issues in the U.S. economy and a consequence of the comparative advantages and international division of labor between the two countries, said the official.
China does not deliberately pursue a trade surplus, the official noted, while pointing out the ratio of China's current account surplus to GDP has decreased from 9.9 percent in 2007 to 2.2 percent in 2024.
Meanwhile, the U.S. is the largest source of China's service trade deficit, which has been on the rise, reaching 26.57 billion U.S. dollars in 2023 and accounting for approximately 9.5 percent of the total U.S. service trade surplus, the official said.
Taking into account the three factors of trade in goods, service trade, and local sales of domestic enterprises' branches in each other's country, the economic and trade exchanges between the two countries are roughly balanced in terms of benefits, according to the official.
Actively expanding imports is a key part of China's strategy for high-level opening up, the official said.
Since November 2018, the China International Import Expo (CIIE) has been held annually in Shanghai. Both the number of participating countries and the intended transaction value have shown year-on-year growth, with cumulative intended transaction value exceeding 500 billion U.S. dollars.
In 2024, China's total value of imports reached 18.4 trillion yuan (about 2.5 trillion U.S. dollars), a year-on-year increase of 2.3 percent. The import volume hit a historic high, and it has also remained the world's second largest import market for 16 consecutive years, the official noted.
China will continue to explore the growth potential of imports, with the aim of transforming the vast Chinese market into a market which is shared by the whole world, injecting new impetus into world economic growth, the official said.
Additional US tariffs on China will only further widen trade deficit: commerce ministry
