"The apparent rise in protectionism is particularly worrying. The risk that US-China trade frictions will increase is higher than ever. That is why the EU stands up for fair and rules-based multilateral trading system," Dombrovskis said on Twitter.
The remarks were made amid the US-Chinese trade war that started in July, when US President Donald Trump, who had repeatedly pledged to fix the US $500 billion trade deficit with China, imposed tariffs on Chinese goods. Since then, the two sides have exchanged several rounds of import duties on each other, with the attempts to resolve the conflict via dialogue coming in vain.
On Saturday, Beijing decided to withdraw from trade talks with Washington, following recent sanctions that the United States imposed against the Chinese Defense Ministry and the Russian state arms exporter Rosoboronexport in connection to the deals on the purchase of the Russian weapons systems.