Will fight back at any cost

• Trump repeats 'we've already lost trade war'

• US technology sector could face ire of Beijing in new measures

China warned yesterday it would fight back "at any cost" with fresh trade measures if the United States continues on its path of protectionism, hours after President Donald Trump threatened to slap tariffs on an additional $100 billion in Chinese goods.

Trump said the United States has already lost any trade war, as he defended his proposed tariffs, saying the move might cause "a little pain" but the United States will be better off in the long run.

"We've already lost the trade war. We don't have a trade war, we've lost the trade war," Trump said in a radio interview with New York radio show, 77 WABC's "Bernie & Sid" early yesterday. In a Twitter message on Wednesday, he had said: "That war was lost many years ago by the foolish, or incompetent, people who represented the US."

In light of China's "unfair retaliation" against earlier US trade actions, Trump upped the ante on Thursday by ordering US officials to identify extra tariffs, escalating a high stakes tit-for-tat confrontation with potentially damaging consequences for the world's two biggest economies.

On Wednesday, China unveiled a list of 106 US goods - from soybeans and whiskey to frozen beef and aircraft - targeted for tariffs, in a swift retaliatory move only hours after the Trump administration proposed duties on some 1,300 Chinese industrial, technology, transport and medical products.

Washington has called for the $50 billion in extra duties after it said a probe determined Chinese government policies are designed to transfer US intellectual property to Chinese companies and allow them to seize leadership in key high-technology industries of the future.

Responding to Trump's latest comments, the Chinese commerce ministry reiterated that China was not afraid of a trade war even though it did not seek one, and accused the United States of provoking the conflict.

So far, US information technology products from mobile phones to personal computers have largely escaped the ire of Beijing, as well as telecoms equipment and aircraft larger than the equivalent of a Boeing 737.

Among the most affected by a trade war could be the US technology sector, particularly chipmakers. The US semiconductor sector relies on China for about a quarter of its revenue.

Chinese state media had slammed Trump's threat of more trade action as "ridiculous".