Washington’s protectionism policy will harm the United States itself, Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said on Monday.

Of late, the US has taken steps to stifle rivalry on global markets and impose tough control over the system of free exchange of goods and services, the Russian premier noted. "This is called protectionism, when some countries try to fence themselves off from other countries. A number of states conduct this policy, and the largest of them is the US, which imposes various restrictions and tariffs against China, the European Union and our country. Eventually, I’m sure that the US economy will be affected by this," Medvedev told an online conference in the Shanghai Media Group.

This policy negatively affects the growth rates of global economy, Medvedev said, calling for preserving the regime of the World Trade Organization as well as developing and reforming it in some cases.

The Russian prime minister stressed that "protectionism is a bad phenomenon in global economy, it has always existed but in previous years most countries adhered to the rules developed in the WTO framework." According to Medvedev, "so far the mankind has not invented anything better in this sphere," although the WTO system is not ideal, it works and ensures rivalry in the world and free development of economies and countries.

Medvedev emphasized that China’s Belt and Road Initiative is completely different from protectionism since it is aimed at "developing global processes in economy and linking various countries." Speaking on plans of conjugating the Eurasian Economic Union and the Belt and Road Initiative, the Russian premier said it is necessary to analyze the positive effect of this idea for the countries’ economics and people.