As Trump effectively announced a global tariff war on “friends and foes” starting on April 2, Li said China would open more to the world and uphold the multilateral global order.
An hour later in Washington, Trump was pledging to balance his country’s budget through dramatic cuts to federal spending. He also expanded his aggressive tariff regime, vowing to impose them on India, South Korea and the European Union, in addition to China, Mexico and Canada.
In Beijing, to pump up the Chinese economy – which grew 5 per cent last year from 2023 – the deficit-to-GDP ratio for 2025 has been set at around 4 per cent, an increase of 1 percentage point over last year.
Li said the target for economic growth this year was again “around 5 per cent”.
Meanwhile a total of 1.3 trillion yuan (about US$182 billion) of ultra-long special treasury bonds will be issued in 2025, up 300 billion yuan from last year, according to a government work report submitted on Wednesday to the top legislature for deliberation.
