China sends warning to Trump after US sets up $60bn import tariffs
US president Donald Trump has signed an order that paves the way for imposing tariffs on as much as $60 billion worth of Chinese imports to punish Beijing for what he said is the theft of US technology and Chinese pressure on US companies to hand it over.
“It is the largest deficit of any country in the history of our world,” Mr Trump said of the Us-china trade imbalance, blaming it for lost US jobs. He said his action would make America stronger and richer.
China has already warned that it will take “all necessary measures” to defend itself, raising the prospect of a trade war between the world’s two biggest economies.
The White House said Mr Trump would direct the Office of the US Trade Representative to publish a list of proposed tariffs for public comment within 15 days.
USTR has already identified potential targets, totalling 1,300 product lines worth about $48 billion.
The president is also asking Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin to come up with a list of restrictions on Chinese investment.
Financial markets skidded on the risk of growing commercial conflict between the US and China, and the possibility China will impose retaliatory tariffs on US products.
Dozens of industry groups sent a letter last weekend to Mr Trump warning that “the imposition of sweeping tariffs would trigger a chain reaction of negative consequences for the US economy, provoking retaliation; stifling US agriculture, goods, and services exports, and raising costs for businesses and consumers”.
The move marks the end of a seven-month US investigation into the hardball tactics China has used to challenge US supremacy in technology, including, the US has said, dispatchinghackerstostealcommercial secrets and demanding that US firms hand over trade secrets in exchange for access to the Chinese market.
The administration argues that years of negotiations with China have failed to produce results. Business groups mostly agree that something needs to be done about China’s aggressive push in technology, but they worry that China will retaliate and start a trade war.
“The sanctions are a very big deal,” says Mary Lovely, a Syracuse University economist and senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics.
Earlier Mr Trump said he could beat former vice president Joe Biden in a brawl.
Reacting to comments Mr Biden made about him, the president tweeted: “Crazy Joe Biden is trying to act like a tough guy. Actually, he is weak, both mentally and physically, and yet he threatens me, for the second time, with physical assault. He doesn’t know me, but he would go down fast and hard, crying all the way.”