US tariffs won’t hurt China’s IPRs, manufacturing: experts

The US’ Section 301 investigation won’t harm China’s hightech and advanced manufacturing industries, and China can easily cope with any challenge in the field of intellectual property rights (IPRs), Chinese experts and officials said.

“China’s achievements in the area of innovation were made not through stealing or

American farmers, companies and workers will be attacked by Trump administration’s announced tariffs, said John Ross, Senior Fellow at the Chongyang Institute for Financial Studies, Renmin University of China, the Xinhua News Agency reported.

“While the Trump administration’s announced tariffs are negative for China, they are also seriously negative for the US,” he stressed.

US President Donald Trump on Thursday asked the US Trade Representative to consider $100 billion in additional tariffs on products imported from China. Responding to this, China said it will fight “at any cost” and take “comprehensive countermeasures” if the US continues its unilateral, protectionist practices, according to the Ministry of Commerce.

US business groups have also expressed their concerns that the rising US protectionist trade policy against China will have serious impact on American farmers. Max Baucus, a former senator from the US state of Montana and US ambassador to China, said American farmers “are going to get squeezed” by the tariff proposal “from all sides.”

John Heisdorffer, president of the American Soybean Association, also said that a 25 percent tariff on US soybeans into China will have a devastating effect on every soybean farmer in America.