HOUSTON — Mercantilist policies could significantly hamper the United States' position as a global energy exporter, according to a new report.

The US should carefully consider "the negative consequences of retreating from multilateral and bilateral free trade policies," a report published by Rice University's Baker Institute for Public Policy in Houston on Friday said.

Titled "Energy Over the Next 20 Years: It's Not All About the US," the report says it is the developing world, not the developed countries, that will be the driver of global energy growth in the 21st century.

Thanks to the "shale revolution", the United States is well on its way to becoming the world's top oil and gas producer and a major exporter of both products.

The report suggests that US policymakers and stakeholders should take into account the fact that the future of the US fossil fuel sector will increasingly depend on foreign demand.

The report was published on the day the US government unveiled plans to impose additional 25 percent tariffs on Chinese goods worth around $50 billion, the latest unilateral move that could provoke a trade war between the world's top two economies and damage the global economy and trading system.

China expressed its firm opposition to the new tariffs after the Office of the US Trade Representative published a list of Chinese goods subject to them.

A spokesperson for China's Ministry of Commerce (MOC) said Friday that though China does not want a trade war, it will fight back forcefully to safeguard the interests of the nation and its people and uphold economic globalization and the multilateral trading system.