Kudlow declined to specify details of the expected announcement but noted that reports indicating Trump will unveil 10 percent duties on $200 billion in imports are “more or less correct”.
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The Trump administration’s threat to impose tariffs on more than US$500 billion worth of Chinese imports is likely to provoke outrage, not only from Beijing but closer to home.
Ross also said the United States was actively pursuing action against China through the World Trade Organisation (WTO), a process the secretary said was supported by Japan and the EU.
The oil market is “tightening up”, but the Trump administration could still spoil oil prices if its aggressive trade war against China drags down economic growth. “They also know that I am the one that knows how to stop it”, he said in a statement on Twitter on Tuesday.
US President Donald Trump said the latest round of tariffs was in response to China’s “unfair trade practices, including subsidies and rules that require foreign companies in some sectors to bring on local partners”.
These items were on the proposed list. of added duties on Chinese imports announced by the United States Trade Representative back in July.
Beijing said it deeply regrets the need to act, with its Commerce Ministry adding that its actions “safeguard its legitimate rights and interests and the global free trade order”.
For now, China has declined to put tariffs on US crude oil. “Rather, it is to force United States multinational companies to pull back their investments in China, so that the interdependence of the two rival economies is reduced”.
The officials told reporters the lower initial tariff rate would give USA businesses time to find new suppliers.
Separately, in a tweet before his announcement, Trump wrote: “Tariffs have put the U.S.in a very strong bargaining position, with Billions of Dollars, and Jobs, flowing into our Country – and yet cost increases have thus far been nearly unnoticeable”.
According to Chad Bown, a trade expert at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, by the time of November’s mid-term elections, “40 percent of total USA imports could be hit by new tariffs that Trump imposed in 2018 alone”.
“China has had many opportunities to fully address our concerns”, Trump said in a statement released Monday evening by the White House.
The tariffs also put retailers in a tough position.
“This measure by U.S. side added more uncertainties to the talks between the two sides”, he said.
In a statement on Monday, the U.S. president said any retaliatory measures from China would force the United States to “immediately pursue phase three, which is tariffs on approximately $267bn of additional imports”. However, Beijing could be reserving that option for the next round of escalation, such as in retaliation for the potential $267 billion in further tariffs that Trump has threatened.
A quarter of registered voters nationally think raising tariffs will do more to protect American jobs and help the US economy, according to an NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll in July.
“American exporters now face a double whammy in terms of their competitiveness in the Chinese markets due to China’s retaliatory tariffs and the strengthening of the dollar”, said economist Eswar Prasad of Cornell University, who formerly was the head of the International Monetary Fund’s China division.
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The latest tariffs come after talks between the two countries failed to resolve the trade dispute. In competitive House districts, 42 percent of those surveyed said tariffs would be “good” for jobs in the USA, while 57 percent responded that they would be “bad”. “We’re not being ripped off in a little while”, he said.
