CHINESE Ambassador to Nigeria, Yu Dunhai, has described recent imposition of tariff by United States President, Donald Trump on goods exported from different parts of the world into the country, especially China, as an opportunity to deepen our cooperation between China and Nigeria.

Speaking at a forum to discuss the high tariff, which many people speculated was particularly targeted against China, the envoy believed that with China as the largest market in the world, the trade war will create more chances for Nigeria and other African countries to export more goods to China than previously.

“As I mentioned, last year, we signed the agreement on the exportation of Nigerian peanuts to China. And now, we are currently working on another two agreements – one is on soybeans and the third one is on the aqua products.

“Actually, we also would like to have Nigerian oil imported to China because currently, I have seen only a very small portion of oil in the export of Nigerian products to China. So, I see there is a huge potential for the trade between our two countries.”

The ambassador projected an increase in the trade volume between both countries this year as a consequence of the high tariffs.

“The second area is investment. Because the impact, the uncertainty created by the U.S. tariffs, many of entrepreneurs would be affected, particularly the small and medium scale enterprises (SMEs), as mentioned by the Minister of Industry, Investment and Trade in Nigeria”

While the entire world remained apprehensive over imminent recession, Dunhai said the development could have some positive implications when viewed from inherent opportunities for most African countries to switch trade partners and destinations.

“As I mentioned, it also provides some opportunities for China and Nigeria, and for China and African countries because I believe that China and Nigeria, last year, agreed to elevate our bilateral relations to a comprehensive strategic one and we signed over a dozens of corporate documents.

“And since my arrival as ambassador, I have seen several huge, big projects that have been landed in Nigeria, which each project worth roughly $1 billion. So for China, we believe that Nigeria is a big market with its over 200 million populations.

“Therefore, we would like to have more Chinese investments. As a matter of fact, many Chinese entrepreneurs came to Nigeria in the past few months to identify, discuss to explore potential opportunities to have investment in so many areas, including renewable energy, agriculture and manufacturing industry”, the ambassador said.

Adding: “So, I see there is a huge potential for more investment, which will contribute to the industrialisation and also the agricultural modernization of Nigeria. On infrastructure, Nigeria has remained China’s largest engineering contract partner in Africa. So, I believe that in the future, we will see more cooperation in infrastructure because as a developing country, China sees the key role that is played by infrastructure. It improves the connectivity, the convenience, the efficiency as well as boost the environment and economy.

“In all, I see that there will be more synergy between China and Nigeria, particularly between China’s modernisation and major areas identified by the President Bola Ahmed Tinubu of Nigeria.”

The ambassador generally frowned at the U.S. for allegedly clinging to an outdated mindset of “might makes right” and “America First”, stressing that such actions resort to unilateral bullying and imposing of tariffs indiscriminately while disregarding multilateral rules.

“It openly places its own interests above the common interests of international society and flagrantly disregards the multilateral trading system and established rules. It promotes a law-of-the-jungle approach, which is clearly turning back the wheel of history.”

He added that U.S. actions severely infringed upon the legitimate rights and interests of other countries, blatantly violated World Trade Organization’s rules, undermined the rules-based multilateral trading system and destabilized the global economic order.