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China has lashed out at the US with a scathing response to Trump's trade deal with UK.
Tensions have been rising between the global superpowers ever since the US President announced a raft of 'reciprocal' tariffs on trading partners as of April 2.
China has arguably been the most aggressive in its response, engaging in a brutal game of tariff table tennis for more than a month with Donald Trump, with each party threatening to hike costs on imports to ridiculous amounts.
While the POTUS has since agreed on a '90-day pause' on the trade war between Washington and Beijing to let the friction cool, and slashed tariffs on Chinese imports from 145 percent to 40 percent, Trump announced a 'major' new trade with the UK had been reached on May 7.
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The agreement with the UK Prime Minister, Sir Keir Starmer, comes as the first for the Trump administration with a foreign nation and includes sector-specific relief from US levies on UK car and steel exports.
Now, China isn't best pleased with the agreement, claiming the US-UK deal could be detrimental to the country if Britain pushes Chinese products out of its supply chains.
When asked about the deal, Beijing said it was a 'basic principle' that trade agreements between any two countries shouldn't affect another.
Speaking to the Financial Times, China's foreign ministry said: "Co-operation between states should not be conducted against or to the detriment of the interests of third parties."
Last month, China issued a chilling warning to the world, stating any other countries' trade deals with the US would cause trouble.
"China firmly opposes any party reaching a deal at the expense of China’s interests," the Chinese commerce ministry said on April 21, and outright warned 'resolute and reciprocal' countermeasures would be applied to those who do come to an agreement with Trump.
"Appeasement will not bring peace, and compromise will not be respected … To seek one’s own temporary selfish interests at the expense of others’ interests is to seek the skin of a tiger, which will ultimately fail on both ends and harm others," they added.
China also stated: "Where the strong prey on the weak, all countries will become victims."
The latest puts both London and America in an awkward position with China fast-tracking efforts to clear out foreign-made parts in its own supply chains to protect it from the trade war dispute.
A Chinese government adviser added: "China will need to respond — the UK should not have rushed to agree to the deal."
Zhang Yansheng, a senior researcher at the China Academy of Macroeconomic Research, also told the news outlet that 'it's not fair to China' for the UK to make such an agreement.
“This type of poison pill clause is actually worse than the tariffs," he added, urging China to 'bluntly raise the issue' with the UK.
“The underlying problem is the US, other countries are secondary actors,” he added. “It needs to be discussed in trade talks with the US.”
Meanwhile, the UK can benefit from lower car and steel exports - under the condition the country 'works to promptly meet US requirements' in supply chain security and the 'ownership of relevant production facilities.'
Officials believe Trump has added this clause deliberately to isolate China.
Trump's baseline 10 percent tariff on all other British goods will also remain in force.
The UK government said at the time that it had reached a trade deal with Trump to 'secure thousands of jobs' and 'protect British businesses' while trade and investment with China 'remain important to the UK.'