FRESH BATCH OF CHINESE TRADE TARIFFS

Action meant as punishment for intellectual property theft

Trump administration unveils more levies, meant as punishment for intellectual property theft.

WASHINGTON — The Trump administration on Tuesday escalated the brewing trade war with China by releasing a long list of imports that could shortly be slapped with 25 percent tariffs.

The move is likely to be met with retaliatory action from China and could further rattle stock markets and raise fears of higher consumer prices in both China and the U.S.

The proposed new tariffs amount to $12.5 billion on about $50 billion in goods. They would affect hundreds of China-made products such as semiconductors, car and aircraft parts and machine tools.

Some economists see the tit-for-tat actions and growing rhetoric on both sides as brinkmanship leading to possible direct talks and mutual concessions that could still prevent a trade conflict from spinning out of control.

President Donald Trump’s latest tariffs, which would take effect in June at the earliest, are meant to punish China for intellectual property theft. They would follow Trump’s move last month to impose tariffs on steel and aluminum from China and some other nations, and an earlier action to levy penalties on Chinese solar panels.

China responded Monday to the steel tariffs with its own duties on $3 billion of U.S. pork, dried fruit and steel pipes. And anticipating the upcoming batch of new tariffs, China’s ambassador to Washington, Cui Tiankai, said that Beijing is prepared to meet them eye for eye.

“We will certainly take countermeasures, of the

same proportion, and the same scale, same intensity,” Cui said on Chinese state television Tuesday.

But even as both sides ramp up the pressure, there are signs that talks between the two economic rivals are continuing and that some concessions from China may be enough to launch formal talks and forestall a trade war.

“I would say the pattern being established is that if trade partners make small concessions that the administration can trumpet, that seems to be sufficient,” said David Dollar, a senior fellow in the John L. Thornton China Center at the Brookings Institution.

But he added: “I’m certain China will retaliate in some way, as they always have. The risk is, if the administration rolls out more measures and people’s egos get involved, and it ratchets up from there, then it starts to become significant for the U.S. economy.”

Trump on Tuesday again suggested that his tariffs are meant to pressure Beijing to come to the table and make concessions.

“We’ll be working with China, we’ll be negotiating with China,” Trump said, repeating his “great respect” for Chinese President Xi Jinping.

“We intend to get along with China, but we have to do something very substantial” on trade, Trump said.