“Cooperation between states should not be conducted against or to the detriment of the interest of third parties,” China’s foreign ministry told the Financial Times in an article published May 13. Beijing maintains that this is a “basic principle.”

Chinese officials complained about the national security provisions in the general terms for the U.S.-United Kingdom Economic Prosperity Deal, announced May 8. The deal was the first trade agreement touted by the Trump administration, which imposed tariffs on most of the world on Apr. 2, which President Trump dubbed “Liberation Day.”

In practical terms, Washington and London agreed that only goods meeting American security requirements will be eligible for relief from U.S. tariffs.

China’s regime, by surreptitiously including suspicious components in Chinese equipment, has only itself to blame for the proposed restriction. In view of the threat that these products pose, it’s important to keep them out of the U.S., even if there were such a “basic principle,” which there isn’t.

The general terms state that the U.S. will provide “modified reciprocal tariff treatment, based on our balanced trading relationship and shared national security priorities.”

Those “priorities” include those “identified in future U.S. Section 232 investigations.”

Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962 authorizes the president to impose restrictions, including tariffs and quotas, on imports that impair or threaten........

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