Trump gets tough on trade with China
President Donald Trump speaks before he signs a presidential memorandum imposing tariffs and investment restrictions on China in the Diplomatic Reception Room of the White House on Thursday in Washington.
WASHINGTON — Primed for economic combat, President Donald Trump set in motion tariffs on as much as $60 billion in Chinese imports to the U.S. on Thursday and accused the Chinese of high-tech thievery, picking a fight that could push the global heavyweights into a trade war.
China threatened retaliation, and Wall Street cringed, recording one of the biggest drops of Trump’s presidency. But he declared the U.S. would emerge “much stronger, much richer.”
It was the boldest example to date of Trump’s “America first” agenda, the culmination of his longstanding view that weak U.S. trade policies and enforcement have hollowed out the nation’s workforce and ballooned the federal deficit. Two weeks ago, with fanfare, he announced major penalty tariffs on steel and aluminum imports that he said threatened national security.
However, even as Trump was talking tough at the White House, his administration moved to soften the sting of the metal tariffs, telling Congress on Thursday that the European Union, Australia, South Korea and other nations would join Canada and Mexico in gaining an initial exemption. And that raised questions about whether his actions will match his rhetoric.
China responded early today by announcing a list of U.S. goods, including pork, apples and steel pipe, it said may be hit with higher import duties.
The Commerce Ministry said the higher U.S. tariffs “seriously undermine” the global trading system. The ministry urged the U.S. “to resolve the concerns of the Chinese side as soon as possible,” and appealed for dialogue “to avoid damage to overall Chinese-U.S. cooperation.”
At home, investors on Wall Street showed their rising concern about retaliation and business-stifling cost increases for companies and consumers. The Dow Jones industrials plunged 724 points.
“Any way you look at it, it is the largest deficit of any country in the history of our world. It’s out of control,” Trump said of the U.S-China imbalance.