Neither escalation nor trade war: France says it will continue negotiations on surcharges on cognac in China

The Minister Delegate for Foreign Trade, Sophie Primas, said Monday that negotiations remained "clearly open" with Beijing on potential Chinese customs surcharges targeting cognac, without ruling out the option of a response from Paris. Sophie Primas was speaking from Shanghai, after a meeting Sunday evening with the Chinese Minister of Commerce, Wang Wentao. Her trip comes at a time of escalating trade tensions between China and the European Union (EU). While Sophie Primas assured Monday that she had had an "extremely firm" speech with her Chinese counterpart, she stressed that "France is in favor of negotiations, obviously". "We are not in an escalation of a trade war and therefore we must enter into negotiations", she told the press. In France, the cognac interprofessional organization considers itself "sacrificed" by the government, which firmly supported the imposition by the EU of additional customs duties on electric cars imported from China, definitively confirmed last ...