China Rejects US Report on Tariff Evasion via Mexico

China rejected a White House report on Thursday that accused its exporters of routing goods through Mexico and other countries to avoid US tariffs, hours after word emerged that Mexico was preparing to restrict Chinese products further.

He Yadong, a spokesman for China’s Ministry of Commerce, told a regular press briefing in Beijing that the report “ignored facts and distorted reality by treating normal international trade and investment as fraud”.

He called it a “typical exercise in unilateralism and protectionism” intended to “suppress and block Chinese products”, and accused Washington of “blaming external factors for its own economic problems”.

“The high differentiated tariffs imposed by the United States are the real cause threatening the security of global supply chains,” He said.

The spokesman demanded an immediate end to what he called irresponsible accusations and said China would keep developing commercial cooperation with all parties on the basis of equality and mutual benefit.

Its estimates of 450,000 American jobs and up to US$150 billion in lost output are presented as model-based illustrations, although the text concedes that the shift in US import sourcing after 2018 does not prove all displaced Chinese trade was illegally diverted.