"'Chat-chat' was better than 'war-war'," Christine Lagarde quoted Winston Churchill as saying. Ahead of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank spring meetings, the IMF managing director called on all economies to steer clear of protectionism and address trade disputes in a multilateral framework.
She made the remarks amid the spiraling trade tensions between the world's two largest economies and the reverberations in the global economy, which is set to register the fastest growth in eight years.
The clouds of a trade war started appearing this January when US President Donald Trump approved sweeping tariffs on Chinese solar panels and washing machines under the unilateral Section 201 of the Trade Act of 1974.
Over the past three months, the sanctions have quickly expanded to steel and aluminum imports as well as an array of hi-tech products from electronics and satellites to medicines. Now a trade row has stretched into a tech skirmish as Washington imposed a seven-year ban on China's telecom giant ZTE.