Trump orders tariffs placed on Chinese imports
China plans retaliation, considers hike on $3B worth of U.S. goods
WASHINGTON — 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.
China retaliated, 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.
China isn’t shrugging him off. “If somebody tries to impose a trade war on us … we will certainly fight back and retaliate,” said Cui Tiankai, Chinese ambassador to the U.S. “If people want to play tough, we will play tough with them and see who will last longer.”
China announced a $3 billion list of U.S. goods including pork, apples and steel pipe on Friday that it said may be hit with higher tariffs.
The Commerce Ministry urged Washington to negotiate a prompt settlement to the conflict over Trump’s tariff hike on steel and aluminum but set no deadline.
The ministry said Beijing was considering a tariff increase of 25 percent on pork and aluminum scrap, mirroring Trump’s 25 percent charge on steel. A second list of goods including wine, apples, ethanol and stainless steel pipe would be charged 15 percent, mirroring Trump’s tariff hike on aluminum.
Trump, joined by supportive business executives, complained bitterly about the nation’s trade deficit and accused China of stealing America’s prized technology.
“Any way you look at it, it is thelarg- est deficit of any country in the history of our world. It’s out of control,” Trump said of the U.s-china imbalance. The U.S. reported a $375 billion deficit with China last year, which Trump has blamed for the loss of American jobs and closing of plants.
Despite Trump’s confident words, business groups and Republican lawmakers are worried his tariffs could undercut actions they have welcomed in his first year.
“The vast majority of our members are very concerned that these trade actions will at a minimum undermine the strong business confidence that has been created by the tax and regulatory process,” said Josh Bolten, president and CEO of the Business Roundtable. “And if it’s taken to an extreme, it will reverse that progress.”
But some labor unions and Democrats said Trump was justified in delivering a swift blow to China after years of a lax response from the U.S.
“Chinese cheating has cost American jobs and I applaud the administration for standing firm in its commitment to crack down on China’s continued violations,” said Sen. Sherrod Brown of Ohio.
Thursday’s announcement marked the end of a seven-month investigation into the hardball tactics China has used to challenge U.S. supremacy in technology, including, the U.S. says, dispatching hackers to steal commercial secrets and demanding that U.S. companies hand over trade secrets in exchange for access to the Chinese market.