Hungary’s foreign minister calls for Europe-US-China deal to preserve free trade

Hungary urges Europe, the United States and China to sign an agreement on preserving free and fair global trade and preventing a global trade war, Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó said in Ningbo, China, on Thursday.

Szijjártó, who is on a three-day visit to China, attended a “16+1” meeting of Chinese and central and eastern European trade ministers after holding bilateral talks with Chinese trade minister Zhong Shan, the deputy minister in charge of China’s customs authority and the governor of Zhejiang province.

“Since Hungary has a small, open and export-orientated economy, it is of great concern for us to see the ever sharper divisions in global trade,”

Szijjártó told MTI by phone. “With the introduction or planned introduction of tariffs and trade restrictions, a trade war is brewing between the US, China and the European Union,” he added. “And a trade war like this could have serious negative effects on export-orientated countries like those of central Europe, including Hungary.”

Hungary sends 80 percent of its exports to the EU, but its second-largest export market is the US, followed by China,

the minister said. Therefore it would be completely against Hungary’s interests for its three largest export markets to enter into a trade war with one another. This is why Hungary urges the signing of a US-EU-Chinese agreement on the preservation of the freedom and fairness of the global economy and the prevention of a trade war, Szijjártó said.