MADRID (Reuters) – Spain will pursue nearer commerce ties with China within the pursuits of its residents and of the EU, its agriculture minister Luis Planas mentioned on Wednesday, rejecting a U.S. warning that shifting nearer to the Asian nation can be “chopping your individual throat”.
“We have now wonderful commerce relations with China which we intend to not solely proceed having, however increasing,” Planas advised reporters from Ho Chi Minh Metropolis, the place he was accompanying Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez on a visit to Vietnam and, on Friday, China.
Planas had been requested about earlier feedback by U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, who criticised Spanish Financial system Minister Carlos Cuerpo’s suggestion that Europe ought to extra carefully align with China.
“That will be chopping your individual throat,” Bessent advised a banking occasion in Washington, including that China would proceed to provide too many items and dump them on markets elsewhere.
Sanchez and Planas are heading to Beijing later this week to forge nearer financial ties amid the worldwide fallout of U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariff coverage, in search of to place Spain as an interlocutor between China and the EU and appeal to Chinese language funding.
Trump’s punishing tariffs, which the president says are aimed toward ending U.S. commerce deficits with many international locations, have upended the worldwide buying and selling order, elevating fears of recession and wiping trillions of {dollars} off the market worth of main corporations.
Planas mentioned that the way in which the U.S. was negotiating with buying and selling companions didn’t seem “respectful”.
He added that Spain defended its pursuits throughout the framework of the European Union, which sought dialogue with the U.S. to resolve variations.
“We have now buying and selling companions all around the world. We consider within the existence of a rules-based multilateral commerce,” Planas mentioned.
The minister added that strengthening ties with Vietnam and China didn’t contradict the EU’s commerce ideas.
(Reporting by David Latona and Emma Pinedo; Modifying by Aislinn Laing and Alex Richardson)
