White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow on Thursday said he expects the United States and China to work out their trade differences over time and that trade barriers likely “will come down on both sides.”

“There is a process here. There’s going to be some back and forth, but there’s also some negotiations,” he said in an interview on Fox Business Network. “I think we are going to get a deal over a period of time,” noting that any talks "could have a great ending."

Kudlow said the Trump administration’s recent trade actions toward China were not intended to punish any industries or the markets, but Beijing should shoulder the blame for any hit to the U.S. economy.

“Our intention is not to punish anybody. Our intention is to open markets and investments and lower barriers — that’s the deal,” Kudlow told reporters at the White House. “Any damage to our economy comes from China’s restrictive practices ... blame China, don’t blame Trump.”

For its part, China has never surrendered to external pressure and it will win any trade war with the United States, the nation’s state media stressed in the hours after the world’s two top economies targeted each other with planned steep tariffs.

China’a ambassador to the United States Cui Tiankai told reporters in Washington on Wednesday that Beijing preferred to resolve the trade dispute through negotiations, but China’s official mouthpieces took a tougher stance.

The ruling Communist Party’s People’s Daily newspaper said Beijing’s quick counter-move after Washington announced new tariffs this week had caught the Americans off guard.

“Within 24 hours of the U.S. publishing its list, China drew its sword, and with the same strength and to the same scale, counterattacked quickly, fiercely and with determination,” the paper said in a commentary on Thursday.

“The confidence to know that [China] will win the trade war comes from the scale of [China’s] consumer market,” the paper said, noting that China’s market potential is incomparable to other economies.

Many American consumer product and industrial companies see the Chinese market as a big source for future growth given the continued rise in the number of people joining both the middle class and the wealthier levels of Chinese society.

The United States’ proposed list of $50 billion in duties on Chinese goods is aimed at forcing Beijing to address what Washington says is deeply entrenched theft of U.S. intellectual property and forced technology transfer from American companies.

China hit back within hours with its own threatened tariffs on U.S. imports including soybeans, planes, cars, whiskey and chemicals.