President Trump said on Thursday he had ordered USA trade officials to consider tariffs on $100 billion more of imports from China, escalating tensions with Beijing.
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China responded swiftly and robustly by proposing tariffs on 106 key U.S. products, including soybeans, aircraft parts and orange juice, narrowly aimed at politically important sectors in the United States, such as agriculture. So far, seafood has been spared in China and US’s tariff tit-for-tat, although U.S. seafood importers are watching closely the trade skirmishes.
“You have to go after the people who aren’t treating you right”, Trump said in West Virginia.
Kudlow on Thursday said the administration was involved in “delicate negotiations” that might forestall the need for tariffs.
The White House sent mixed signals on Friday as financial markets slid from investor concern about a significant trade fight. “We are not in a trade war with China, that war was lost many years ago by the foolish, or incompetent, people who represented the USA”, he wrote, “Now we have a Trade Deficit of $500 Billion a year, with Intellectual Property Theft of another $300 Billion”.
On the pain part, if not necessarily on the “little” part, most economists agree with the president: The tariffs the United States and China are preparing to slap on each other’s goods would take an economic toll.
“We still think a trade war can be avoided, but our confidence has been shaken; Donald Trump is itching for a fight and the Chinese will not tolerate public bullying from him”, Horizon’s Greg Valliere writes.
Shares in USA exporters of everything from planes to tractors were volatile on Wednesday after China proposed duties on key US imports including soybeans, planes, cars, beef and chemicals in retaliation to Trump administration tariff plans.
Earlier in the week, Beijing announced separate import duties on $3bn (€2.4bn) of USA goods in response to the Trump administration’s duties on all steel and aluminium imports, including from China.
“In light of China’s unfair retaliation, I have instructed the USTR (United States Trade Representative) to consider whether $100bn of additional tariffs would be appropriate. and, if so, to identify the products upon which to impose such tariffs”.
Mr Trump said the USA has already lost any trade war, as he defended his proposed tariffs, saying the move might cause “a little pain” but the U.S. will be better off in the long run.
Wisconsin – a swing state that voted for President Donald Trump in 2016 – produces more than half of the world’s cranberries.
The President has announced plans for another 0 billion in tariffs targeting goods imported from China yesterday. White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said the two sides remained in “routine contact”.
On Wednesday, China announced plans to levy additional 25% tariffs on U.S. exports worth $50bn, including soybeans. He gave no details of what measures Beijing might take.
Trump also accuses China of unfair competition and stealing U.S. intellectual property in the form of its inventions and innovation. Farm exports are a big part of overall US exports, and also farm country is Trump country.
Mr. Gao denied that Beijing and Washington were engaged in any negotiations and said they haven’t done so “for a period of time”, despite remarks by some US officials that both sides were trying to resolve the disputes.
The tit-for-tat moves have unsettled global markets in recent weeks.
In response to threats of additional tariffs, China’s Commerce Ministry says Beijing will not hesitate to keep matching any future tariffs with their own. John Thune, the Senate’s No. 3 Republican, in an interview with KDLT-TV in Sioux Falls. He has since exempted most major steel and aluminum producers from these tariffs, except for China.
Were China to want to match Mr Trump’s latest threat, it wouldn’t have enough American goods imports to target.
Beijing announced its list of 106 American products that will be hit with 25% tariffs on Wednesday.
Further escalation could be in the offing.
For many businesses that use Chinese goods to make their products, the cost to produce their items will increase.
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He also left the door open for further talks with the Chinese government. The Trump administration cited the August 2017 investigation into Chinese intellectual property theft and this time tariffs were aimed at aerospace, industrial and commercial machinery, and medical equipment. “He said that to me”. Not all soybeans and corn are shipped to China, for one thing.
