China accuses US of 'bullying' the world with tariffs at UN meeting
UNITED NATIONS — China accused the U.S. of using tariffs to bully other nations as it led a United Nations Security Council Arria-formula meeting on "The Impact of Unilateralism and Bullying Practices on International Relations."
"Under the guise of reciprocity and fairness, the U.S. is playing a zero-sum game, which is essentially about subverting the existing international economic and trade order by means of tariffs, putting U.S. interests above the common good of the international community and advancing hegemonic ambitions of the U.S. at the cost of the legitimate interest of all countries," Chinese U.N. Ambassador Fu Cong said in his opening remarks.
Fu also praised China for its "decisive countermeasures" after facing what he described as "U.S. abuse of tariffs."
A State Department spokesperson told Fox News Digital that the meeting was "a waste of U.N. Security Council members’ time." The spokesperson also slammed the meeting as an example of China’s manipulation of "the multilateral system to support its economic, political, and security interests."
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"China continues to contradict itself; while claiming to support open markets, it dumps artificially low-priced goods into the global economy with exports, steals intellectual property, and implements unfair trade practices," the spokesperson said. "China claims to be a developing country, while it simultaneously weaponizes its donor status and development projects to bully developing Member States."
The spokesperson added that the U.S. would continue to safeguard its interests and combat China’s efforts.
American lawmakers, including Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla., have rejected China's claims that the U.S. is engaging in global bullying.
Scott said China’s assertion was "absurd" and called for the defunding of "the anti-American U.N. IMMEDIATELY" in a post on X.
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"As of today, all countries targeted by the U.S. for trade fairness recalibration have dealt or are dealing quickly and constructively with D.C. — except Canada and China," Hugh Dugan, a former Senior Director in the NSC in the first Trump Administration, told FOX Business. "Meanwhile the Communist Party of China continues to bully and [use] its own people to subsidize output by substandard wages."
Dugan also dismissed the idea that China could "survive in a global economy without exploiting its workers' human rights through slave wages and without stealing intellectual property from abroad."
A guest speaker invited by the Chinese to address the council meeting, Wang Huiyao, founder and president of the Center for China and Globalization (CCG), claimed that the U.S. had launched a trade war "against the entire world" with President Donald Trump’s tariff policies.
According to the watchdog organization U.N. Watch, CCG has "close ties to the Chinese Communist Party."
"It’s Orwellian to watch China, one of the world’s leading abusers of economic coercion and human rights, convene a U.N. meeting to accuse others of bullying," U.N. Watch Executive Director Hillel Neuer told FOX Business in a statement.
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"This is the same regime that threatens sanctions on democracies recognizing Taiwan, punishes countries for standing with Uyghurs, and bullies its neighbors in the South China Sea. Beijing’s attempt to hijack the U.N. to attack the United States is not about peace or development — it’s about shielding authoritarian power from accountability."
While the Trump administration imposed tariffs on a host of nations, it took the toughest approach to China and implemented a 145% tariff on Chinese goods. However, The Wall Street Journal reported that a senior White House official told the outlet that tariffs on China could be cut to 50%-65%.