China Hits Back at Trump's Trade War Threats During Biden Debate

A combination of photos shows Chinese President Xi Jinping and then-U.S. President Donald Trump in 2020.

A Chinese official has told Newsweek that the United States would not emerge victorious in a bilateral trade war after former president and current Republican candidate Donald Trump talked tough on Beijing in his debate with President Joe Biden.

"On China-U.S. trade, I want to stress that China-U.S. economic and trade cooperation is mutually beneficial in nature," Liu Pengyu, spokesperson for the Chinese Embassy to the United States, told Newsweek. "No one will win a trade war or a tariff war."

"Arbitrarily placing curbs or adopting protectionism will only disrupt normal trade flows and the stability of the production and supply chain," Pengyu said, "which serves the interests of no one."

The comments came after Trump defended his calls for a 10 percent tariff on all incoming U.S. goods, a move he argued would drive up costs for foreign exporters as opposed to domestic consumers.

"It's just going to cause countries that have been ripping us off for years, like China —and many others, in all fairness to China—it's going to just force them to pay us a lot of money, reduce our deficit tremendously," Trump said during his first debate with Biden of the 2024 election season, "and give us a lot of power for other things."

It wasn't the only time the former U.S. leader brought up China throughout the night.

In fact, Trump mentioned China a dozen times throughout the 90-minute bout, second only to Russia among foreign powers brought up.

The U.S. and China are the world's first and second-largest economies, respectively, and Beijing's rapid growth in economy, military and technology has been considered by both the Trump and Biden administrations to be the leading challenge to Washington's effort to retain global dominance.

Liu, however, took exception to the tone and frequency of references to China throughout a debate that has emerged as one of the most controversial in U.S. history.

"China adheres to the principle of non-interference in other countries' internal affairs and does not comment on issues related to the U.S. presidential election," Liu said. "At the same time, we oppose the U.S. frequently making an issue of China in the election."

"No matter who is elected, China hopes that China-U.S. relations will continue to develop in a sound and steady way," he added, "and will keep handling China-U.S. relations in accordance with the principles of mutual respect, peaceful coexistence and win-win cooperation."

But Trump, under whom U.S.-China relations suffered a sharp downturn, took numerous opportunities on Friday to deride what he alleged to be an overly accommodating approach to Beijing by Biden. In addition to trade issues, Trump touted his own administration's decision to pull out of the Paris Climate Accord, a near-universal global treaty that he argued "was going to cost us a trillion dollars, and China nothing, and Russia nothing, and India nothing."

Biden swiftly rejoined the accord upon taking office in 2021 and claimed Thursday that his rival "had not done a damn thing with the environment." He also fought back on Trump's self-proclaimed achievements in other areas of China policy.

"You have not, in fact, made any contact, any progress with China," Biden said. "We are the lowest trade deficit with China since 2010."

Biden often stumbled on his words throughout the debate and at times failed to even finish sentences, sparking panic among fellow Democrats and even calls for him to step down at a time when the 81-year-old president's age and mental acuity have been an ongoing concern.

But 78-year-old Trump, who was derided by fact-checkers for frequently distorting facts throughout the night, dug into his argument and even accused the incumbent leader of accepting payments from the People's Republic.

"We now have the largest deficit in the history of our country under this guy, we have the largest deficit with China," Trump said. "He gets paid by China. He's a Manchurian Candidate. He gets money from China. So, I think he's afraid to deal with him or something."

No evidence has emerged suggesting Biden has been compromised by Beijing. Biden has actually in many ways pressed on with Trump-era policies taking a harder line against China on a number of issues and Trump, too, acknowledged this in his follow-up attack.

"But do you notice? He never took out my tariffs because we bring in so much money with the tariffs that I imposed on China. He never took them away," Trump said. "He can't because it's too much money. It's tremendous. And we saved our steel industries. And there was more to come, but he hasn't done that."

Another line of argument cited by Trump was that Chinese President Xi Jinping, along with North Korean Supreme Leader Kim Jong Un and Russian President Vladimir Putin, "don't respect" and "don't fear" Biden, thus paving the way for a potential World War III scenario.

Biden, who has inaccurately claimed in the past to have traveled 17,000 miles with Xi and to have spent more time with him than any other world leader, argued that the most likely path to doomsday would be another Trump presidency, particularly if the three-time Republican candidate offered Putin a favorable deal on the ongoing war in Ukraine.

China was not alone among countries mentioned in the debate to hit back at the candidates' remarks at a time when U.S. leadership around the world was in question.

After Trump ultimately said he would not accept the terms of Putin's peace proposal in Ukraine, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov told the state-run TASS Russian News Agency on Friday that "time will come and Mr. Trump, regardless of his status in the future, will understand that there are no alternatives to what President Putin is proposing."

The Iranian Mission to the United Nations also shared with Newsweek a retort to both candidates dueling attempts to claim they were tougher on the Islamic Republic.

"We have no intention of interfering in the domestic politics of the United States," the Iranian Mission told Newsweek. "However, we do not lend much credence to the remarks made in these debates and electoral activities, as they are more emotional than logical and lack strategic backing."

Media across the world, including key U.S. allies, also watched the affair closely, many of them focusing largely on Biden's missteps.

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