MOSCOW (Reuters) – The key task for Russia and China is to counter any U.S. attempts to contain their countries, an ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin told China’s foreign minister on Tuesday.

US President-elect Donald Trump has threatened to impose high tariffs on China and other countries, raising fears of a trade war, with the United States portraying China as its biggest competitor and Russia as its biggest threat as a state. nation.

China’s Xi Jinping and Putin in May promised a “new era” of partnership between the United States’ two most powerful rivals, whom they portrayed as an aggressive Cold War hegemon wreaking havoc around the world.

Russian Security Council Secretary Sergei Shoigu told Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi in Beijing that strong relations between Moscow and Beijing were a stabilizing influence in the world.

“I consider the most important task to be countering the policy of ‘double containment’ of Russia and China pursued by the United States and its satellites,” Russian state news agencies quoted Shoigu as saying.

Xi and Putin believe the post-Cold War era of extraordinary American dominance is crumbling after the perceived humiliations of the 1991 Soviet collapse and centuries of European colonial rule over China.

(Reporting by Reuters; writing by Guy Faulconbridge/Lucy Papachristou; editing by Andrew Osborn)