Beijing has denounced Vice President JD 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-U.S. economic and trade relations has been made very clear,” said Lin Jian, a spokesman for China’s foreign ministry, during a news conference on Tuesday. “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 Trump of an additional 50 percent tariff on Chinese goods unless Beijing reverses its retaliatory levies on U.S. imports. China’s Ministry of Commerce on Tuesday accused the United States of “blackmail,” and said that 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 United States.
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 wrought havoc on financial markets and spurred experts to issue warnings about inflation.
The spiraling trade war between the two countries is poised to be costly to Americans, who last year purchased $440 billion of goods from China, making the country the second-largest source of imports after Mexico.
Gillian Wong contributed reporting.
