As the United States and China continue to wage a trade war against each other, a top European official delivered what he called a "simple message": This has to stop.

Speaking with CNBC on Tuesday, European Commissioner for Health and Food Safety Vytenis Andriukaitis denounced the protectionism he said is keeping countries and their people from seeing as much success as they otherwise would.

"Let's send a simple message: Every war is unacceptable. We need to change the situation," he told CNBC's Eunice Yoon at a conference in Shanghai, China. "We are here not because of war between U.S. and China, but because we are strong advocates for multilateralism, for rules-based systems."

Andriukaitis emphasized a traditional refrain among economists — "trade can help all of us to have win-win situations" — but that long-standing contention has become a matter of debate in recent years. During his rise to the presidency in the U.S., Donald Trump repeatedly questioned the efficacy of America's trade deals, arguing that many forms of trade were not "fair" to his country.