China will continue to hit back against the US if more tariffs are imposed, the country’s finance minster has said.
In an interview with Reuters, Liu Kun said China would respond "resolutely" to the "unreasonable" US measures.
On Thursday, the US imposed a second wave of tariffs on Chinese goods worth USD 16bn, and China immediately responded in kind.
Two days of trade talks in Washington between the two sides failed to make any major progress.
The escalating trade row between the US and China has now seen each side impose 25% tariffs on a total of USD 50bn of one another’s goods.
The US has threatened a third round of tariffs on an additionalUSD 200bn of Chinese goods, which could come as soon as next month. President Trump has also said he could slap tariffs on all $500bn of imports from the country.
In his interview with Reuters, Mr Liu said: "China doesn’t wish to engage in a trade war, but we will resolutely respond to the unreasonable measures taken by the United States.
"If the United States persists with these measures, we will correspondingly take action to protect our interests."
He said that, so far, the impact of the trade row on the Chinese economy had not been significant, but added that government spending would be increased to support workers affected by the tariffs.
Mr Liu said China was responding to the US measures in a "precise way".
"Of course, the value of US imports of Chinese goods isn’t the same as the value of Chinese imports of US goods. We’ll take tariff measures in accordance to this situation."
He also said China was trying to ensure that companies operating in the country were not caught up in the crossfire.
"When we take measures, we try our hardest not to harm the interests of foreign businesses in China. That’s why our tariff measures are targeted to avoid affecting them as much as we can."
