China notifies WTO of tariffs against US

GENEVA: China has notified the World Trade Organization it is imposing $611.5 million worth of retaliatory tariffs on $2.75 billion worth of US imports including pork, nuts and ethanol in response to US duties on aluminium and steel, a WTO document showed. The document, dated last Thursday but posted only after the Easter public holidays, came after China said late on Sunday it has increased tariffs by up to 25 percent on 128 US products, escalating a dispute between the world’s biggest economies. China has fulfilled its legal duty to notify the WTO and other member states of its retaliatory measures.* China’s premier pledges market opening in bid to avert US trade war.

Meanwhile, Premier Li Keqiang said China and the United States should maintain negotiations

and he reiterated pledges to ease access for American businesses, as China scrambles to avert a trade war. Li told a conference that included global chief executives that China would treat foreign and domestic firms equally, would not force foreign firms to transfer technology and would strengthen intellectual property rights, repeating promises that have failed to placate Washington.

The United States asked China in a letter last week to cut a tariff on US autos, buy more US-made semiconductors and give US firms greater access to the Chinese financial sector, the Wall Street Journal reported on Monday, citing unidentified sources.

Alarm over a possible trade war between the world’s two largest economies has chilled financial markets as investors anticipated dire consequences should trade barriers go up due to President Donald Trump’s bid to cut the US deficit with China. Chinese officials are also working to finalize rules by May - instead of the end of June - to allow foreign financial groups to take majority stakes in Chinese securities firms, the Financial Times said.

“I anticipate that for political reason it would be logical for China to respond, because countries do,” Blackstone Group Chief Executive Stephen Schwarzman told Reuters on Monday on the sidelines of the Beijing conference at which Li spoke, the China Development Forum.

“That’s why I view this more as a skirmish, and I think the interests of both countries are served by resolving some of these matters.”

Fears of a trade war mounted this month after Trump imposed tariffs on steel and aluminum imports, and then on Thursday specifically targeted China by announcing plans for tariffs on up to $60 billion of Chinese goods.

Alex Wolf, senior emerging markets economist at Aberdeen Standard Investments. “This could put US companies such as Apple, Microsoft, Starbucks, GM, Nike, etc in the firing line,” Wolf said in a note.

China can increase the regulatory burden on US companies through new inspections and rules; ban travel; stop providing export licenses of key intermediate goods; raise the tax burden on US multinationals in China; or block US companies from the government procurement market, he said.