China’s Finance Minister, Lou Jiwei, says GOP front-runner Donald Trump is an “irrational type” and, if the US follows his proposed trade policies, the country “wouldn’t be entitled to world leadership.”

Jiwei is most likely referring to Trump’s suggested 45% tariff on China, which Trump says we need to levy in order to force the country to change its trade policies.

Jeffrey Schott, an economist at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, says any across-the-board tariff would violate US obligations under the World Trade Organization, the Wall Street Journal reports.

And Jiwei agrees, reminding Americans that the US and China are "mutually dependent," with both parties having a lot to lose in any economic confrontation.

“Our economic cycles are intertwined,” he adds. “We have more in common than sets us apart.”

But Trump says he ain't budging.

“All trade and other agreements will be totally and completely renegotiated," Trump says, so the US becomes a “beneficiary of trade, and we will no longer be thought of as fools.” [WSJ]