China hits back against Trump, threatening retaliatory tariff action against the US
China has hit back at US president Donald Trump, announcing it will take retaliatory action against $60 billion of US goods, escalating their trade conflict as the Trump administration considers imposing duties on almost all Chinese imports.
China’s retaliatory tariffs, on items ranging from wine to met and wheat will come into effect next week, according China’s Ministry of Finance in a statement posted on its website. Beijing is still ready to negotiate an end to the trade tensions with the US, claimed the ministry.
At almost the same time Beijing released its list of counter-tariff targets, President Donald Trump on Tuesday threatened more punitive measures against China if it targets politically sensitive US agricultural products for retaliation.
This is in retaliation to an announcement on Monday by President Trump in which he ordered his administration to levy 10% tariffs on about $200 billion in Chinese goods on September 24th and to increase the rate in January to 25% if Beijing refuses to offer trade concessions.
The latest round of duties comes on top of a 25% tariff already imposed on about $50 billion in Chinese goods, which triggered retaliation from Beijing on the same amount of U.S. imports.
Beijing’s plans for tariffs on $60 billion of U.S. goods includes an additional 5% duty on about 1,600 US products including smaller aircraft, computers and textiles and an extra 10% on more than 3,500 items including wine, chemicals, meat and wheat.
Trump said on Monday that the US will immediately pursue additional tariffs on about $267 billion of Chinese imports if Beijing strikes back against American farmers and industry. The third batch of tariffs, together with the previous rounds, would more than cover all products the US imports from China, which were worth about $505 billion last year.
With less than 50 days until the congressional midterm elections, the president face rocky waters if his trade battles have negative repercussions for some of his core supporters in farming and industrial states.