Trump plans next wave of China tariffs,
Move may mean higher prices here
The Washington Post
The Trump administration Tuesday unveiled its list of roughly $50 billion in Chinese electronics, aerospace and machinery products it plans to hit with tariffs, the latest move in a U.S.-China trade conflict.
The 25 percent import taxes are designed to penalize China for discriminatory policies that the U.S. says puts its companies at a disadvantage in the Chinese market. President Donald Trump has complained that the Chinese government forces U.S. companies to surrender their proprietary technology in return for access to the Chinese market and engages in cyber theft to acquire other American trade secrets.
Mr. Trump’s latest protectionist move threatens to upend global supply chains for corporations such as Apple and Dell, raise prices for American consumers who have grown accustomed to inexpensive products, and aggravate tensions between the world’s two largest economies. Indeed, the move is expected to be met with retaliatory action from China.
“The pain will be very visible and the potential gains will be very abstract. The administration hasn’t prepared the U.S. for the downsides of a trade war,” said Brad Setser, a former White House economist in the Obama administration.
With just seven months before congressional elections, that could pose a political challenge for the president, who promised his supporters he would overhaul U.S. trade policy to benefit American workers.
Still, the proposed tariffs wouldn’t take effect before a public comment period ends May 11. A hearing on the tariffs is set for May 15.
The duties would follow Mr. Trump’s move last month to impose stiff 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.
Early Wednesday in Beijing, China’s Commerce Ministry said it “strongly condemns and firmly opposes” the proposed U.S. tariffs and warned of retaliatory action.
“We will prepare equal measures for U.S. products with the same scale” according to regulations in Chinese trade law, a ministry spokesman said in comments carried by the official Xinhua News Agency.
Some economists see the tit-for-tat actions and 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.
Voters disapproved of Mr. Trump’s handling of trade policy by 54 percent to 34 percent in the latest Quinnipiac University poll, with only Republicans and white voters without a college education backing his tariff offensive. In acting, the president swept aside opposition from business groups, which agree that China’s mercantilist policies must be confronted, but fear the consequences of a tit-for-tat trade conflict.