Tusk warns EU, China, US and Russia to reduce trade tensions
European Council President Donald Tusk on Monday called on Europe, China, the US and Russia to work together and avoid trade wars that could lead to "conflict and chaos".
“We are all aware of the fact that the architecture of the world is changing before our very eyes and it is our common responsibility to make it change for the better,” he said on Monday in a summit between China and the EU in Beijing on the same day the US President Donald Trump and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin were due to meet in Helsinki.
"It is a common duty of Europe and China, America and Russia, not to destroy this order, but to improve it. Not to start trade wars, which turned into hot conflicts so often in our history, but to bravely and responsibly reform the rules-based international order," Tusk said.
"This is why I am calling on our Chinese hosts, but also on Presidents Trump and Putin to jointly start this process from a reform of the WTO. There is still time to prevent conflict and chaos."
Tusk said the WTO needed new rules on industrial subsidies, intellectual property and forced technology transfers, reduction of trade costs, "as well as a new approach to development and more effective dispute settlement".
"The aim of this reform should be to strengthen the WTO as an institution and to ensure a level playing field," he added.
Aside from US President Donald Trump meeting the Russian leader, Tusk’s warning comes at a time of tense relationships between the US and China as well as the EU. Recently Trump labelled Europe as one of his country’s “greatest foes”.
China said on Monday that its economic growth rate had slowed slightly to 6.7% in the second quarter of this year, from 6.8% the previous quarter, affected by the recently imposed US tariffs on Chinese imports.
(Writing by Frank Prenesti)