The US asked China in a letter last week to cut the tariff on US autos, buy more US-made semiconductors and give US firms greater access to the Chinese financial sector, the Wall Street Journal reported yesterday, citing unnamed sources.
Alarm over a possible trade war between the world’s two largest economies has chilled financial markets as investors foresee dire consequences should trade barriers go up due to US President Donald Trump’s bid to cut the nation’s deficit with China.
US Secretary of the Treasury Mnuchin and US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer listed steps that Washington wants China to take in a letter to Liu He (劉鶴), a newly appointed vice premier who oversees China’s economy, the newspaper said, quoting sources with knowledge of the matter.
Photo: Reuters
The newspaper reported that Mnuchin was considering a visit to Beijing to pursue negotiations.
Fears of a trade war mounted earlier this month after Trump first slapped tariffs on steel and aluminum imports, and then on Thursday specifically targeted China by announcing plans for tariffs on up to US$60 billion of Chinese goods.
On Friday, China fired a warning shot in response to the US tariffs on steel and aluminum by declaring plans to levy additional duties on up to US$3 billion of US imports.
Beijing could also inflict pain on US multinationals that rely on China for a substantial — and growing — portion of their total revenues, said Alex Wolf, senior emerging markets economist at Aberdeen Standard Investments.
“This could put US companies such as Apple, Microsoft, Starbucks, GM, Nike, etc. in the firing line,” Wolf said.
China can increase the regulatory burden on US companies through new inspections and rules; ban travel; stop providing export licenses of key intermediate goods; raise the tax burden on US multinationals in China; or block US companies from the government procurement market, he said.
Trump unveiled the planned tariffs targetting Chinese goods after a US inquiry found China guilty of intellectual property theft and unfair trade practices by forcing US investors to turn over key technologies to Chinese firms.
On Saturday, Liu told Mnuchin in a telephone call the US inquiry violated international trade rules and Beijing would defend its interests, Xinhua news agency reported.
A US Treasury spokesman confirmed the call, but declined to comment on the content of any letter or on a possible visit by Mnuchin to Beijing.
“Secretary Mnuchin called Liu He to congratulate him on the official announcement of his new role,” the spokesman said. “They also discussed the trade deficit between our two countries and committed to continuing the dialogue to find a mutually agreeable way to reduce it.”
The Trump administration has demanded that China immediately cut its staggering US$375 billion trade surplus with the US by US$100 billion.
“The US has been wielding sticks worldwide over the past year. Washington needs to be taught a real lesson and such a lesson can only be taught by China, the world’s second-largest economy,” Global Times said in an editorial.
The widely read tabloid is run by the Chinese Communist Party’s official People’s Daily, although its stance does not necessarily equate with government policy.
“What we have to recognize is China hasn’t measured up to the things we expected of them, in terms of the trade relationship,” said William Cohen, chairman of Cohen Group, a Washington-based advisory firm.
“My hope is that they will see this is not the way to go, that we do have to sit and work out an arrangement where the Chinese understand you can’t do business the way they’ve been doing business,” the former US secretary of defense said on the sidelines of a forum in Beijing on Sunday.
A commentary published by Xinhua warned the US against provoking retaliation by China.
“Washington should take Beijing’s stance seriously and do not be penny wise and pound foolish, which will hurt itself and others as well,” Xinhua said.
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day
Thousands of parents in Singapore are furious after a Cordlife Group Ltd (康盛人生集團), a major operator of cord blood banks in Asia, irreparably damaged their children’s samples through improper handling, with some now pursuing legal action. The ongoing case, one of the worst to hit the largely untested industry, has renewed concerns over companies marketing themselves to anxious parents with mostly unproven assurances. This has implications across the region, given Cordlife’s operations in Hong Kong, Macau, Indonesia, the Philippines and India. The parents paid for years to have their infants’ cord blood stored, with the understanding that the stem cells they contained