CHINA RETALIATES WITH TARIFFS ON $60 BN OF US GOODS

Retaliation after Trump goes ahead with 10% levy on $200-bn Chinese goods and threatens tariff on another $267-bn imports

China announced it will take retaliatory tariff 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 meat to wheat and textiles, will take effect on September 24, China’s Ministry of Finance said. Beijing is ready to negotiate an end to the trade tensions with the US, the ministry said. President Trump has threatened more punitive measures.

China and the United States plunged deeper into a trade war on Tuesday after Beijing added $60 billion of U.S. products to its import tariff list in retaliation for President Donald Trump’s planned levies on $200 billion worth of Chinese goods. The tit-for-tat measures are the latest escalation in an increasingly protracted trade dispute between the world’s two largest economies.

On Monday, the US administration said it will begin to levy new tariffs of 10 per cent on about $200 billion of Chinese products on September 24, with the tariffs to go up to 25 per cent by the end of 2018. Trump warned that if China takes retaliatory action against US farmers or industries, “we will immediately pursue phase three, which is tariffs on approximately $267 billion of additional imports.”

The Chinese finance ministry on its website said: “China is forced to respond to US unilateralism and trade protectionism, and has no choice but to respond with its own tariffs.”

Beijing will impose levies on a

“IT'S (THE TRADE WAR) GOING TO LAST LONG, IT'S GOING TO BE A MESS... MAYBE 20 YEARS. EVEN IF DONALD TRUMP RETIRED, THE NEW PRESIDENT WILL COME, IT WILL STILL CONTINUE...WE NEED NEW TRADE RULES, WE NEED TO UPGRADE THE WTO” JACK MA, co-founder and executive chairman of Alibaba

total of 5,207 US products — ranging from liquefied natural gas to certain types of aircraft as well as cocoa powder and frozen vegetables — at 5 and 10 per cent, instead of previously proposed rates of 5, 10, 20 and 25 per cent, the finance ministry said.

Both countries’ tariffs come into force on September 24.

So far, the United States has imposed tariffs on $50 billion worth of Chinese products to pressure China to make sweeping changes to its trade, technology transfer and high-tech industrial subsidy policies. Beijing has retaliated in kind.