The US prepared to hit China with new tariffs even as US President Donald Trump said he would meet Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) at next month’s G20 summit, an encounter that could prove pivotal in a deepening clash over trade.
The US Trade Representative’s (USTR) office on Monday released a list of about US$300 billion of Chinese goods, including children’s clothing, toys, mobile phones and laptops, that Trump has threatened to hit with a 25 percent tariff.
If the president proceeds with the tariffs, it would see almost all imports from China covered by punitive duties.
Photo: EPA-EFE
It also would turn the president’s trade disputes into a tangible reality for many Americans as he seeks re-election.
At the same time, Trump is sounding optimistic about the chances of a deal.
“When the time is right we will make a deal with China. My respect and friendship with President Xi is unlimited but, as I have told him many times before, this must be a great deal for the United States or it just doesn’t make any sense,” he tweeted yesterday.
Photo: AFP
Under a process outlined by US officials, the new tariffs would not take effect until late next month at the earliest, but that could come just as Trump meets with Xi on the sidelines of a G20 meeting on June 28 and 29 in Osaka, Japan, raising the stakes in an already escalating trade war.
Trump earlier on Monday warned Beijing not to go too far in responding to US trade actions, after his move last week to increase import duties on a separate US$200 billion tranche of imports from China.
“There can be some retaliation, but it can’t be very substantial,” Trump told reporters at the White House during a meeting with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban.
The release of the additional tariffs list and the continuing escalation it signals drew an outcry from business groups that have been lobbying against the duties.
The USTR said that the new tariffs would not apply to pharmaceuticals or rare earths.
“We support the administration’s efforts to deliver a meaningful trade agreement that levels the playing field for American businesses and workers,” National Retail Federation president and CEO Matthew Shay said in a statement. “But the latest tariff escalation is far too great a gamble for the US economy.”
Economists have warned that the existing tariffs would hurt US growth, but they are also worried an escalation to cover all trade from China and the Chinese retaliation it would provoke would do far more damage and could even tip the US economy into recession.
China on Monday announced plans to raise duties on about US$60 billion in US imports starting June 1, defying a call from Trump to resist escalating the trade dispute.
Less than two hours after Trump tweeted a warning that “China should not retaliate — will only get worse!” the Chinese Ministry of Finance unveiled the measures on its Web site.
The new rate of 25 percent is to apply to 2,493 US products, with other goods subject to duties ranging from 5 percent to 20 percent, it said.
Higher US tariffs would drive up the US Federal Reserve’s preferred measure of underlying inflation, and further escalation could raise consumer prices even more and dent US growth, Goldman Sachs Group Inc economists said in a research note.
‘ABUSE OF POWER’: Lee Chun-yi allegedly used a Control Yuan vehicle to transport his dog to a pet grooming salon and take his wife to restaurants, media reports said Control Yuan Secretary-General Lee Chun-yi (李俊俋) resigned on Sunday night, admitting that he had misused a government vehicle, as reported by the media. Control Yuan Vice President Lee Hung-chun (李鴻鈞) yesterday apologized to the public over the issue. The watchdog body would follow up on similar accusations made by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and would investigate the alleged misuse of government vehicles by three other Control Yuan members: Su Li-chiung (蘇麗瓊), Lin Yu-jung (林郁容) and Wang Jung-chang (王榮璋), Lee Hung-chun said. Lee Chun-yi in a statement apologized for using a Control Yuan vehicle to transport his dog to a
Taiwan yesterday denied Chinese allegations that its military was behind a cyberattack on a technology company in Guangzhou, after city authorities issued warrants for 20 suspects. The Guangzhou Municipal Public Security Bureau earlier yesterday issued warrants for 20 people it identified as members of the Information, Communications and Electronic Force Command (ICEFCOM). The bureau alleged they were behind a May 20 cyberattack targeting the backend system of a self-service facility at the company. “ICEFCOM, under Taiwan’s ruling Democratic Progressive Party, directed the illegal attack,” the warrant says. The bureau placed a bounty of 10,000 yuan (US$1,392) on each of the 20 people named in
The High Court yesterday found a New Taipei City woman guilty of charges related to helping Beijing secure surrender agreements from military service members. Lee Huei-hsin (李慧馨) was sentenced to six years and eight months in prison for breaching the National Security Act (國家安全法), making illegal compacts with government employees and bribery, the court said. The verdict is final. Lee, the manager of a temple in the city’s Lujhou District (蘆洲), was accused of arranging for eight service members to make surrender pledges to the Chinese People’s Liberation Army in exchange for money, the court said. The pledges, which required them to provide identification
INDO-PACIFIC REGION: Royal Navy ships exercise the right of freedom of navigation, including in the Taiwan Strait and South China Sea, the UK’s Tony Radakin told a summit Freedom of navigation in the Indo-Pacific region is as important as it is in the English Channel, British Chief of the Defence Staff Admiral Tony Radakin said at a summit in Singapore on Saturday. The remark came as the British Royal Navy’s flagship aircraft carrier, the HMS Prince of Wales, is on an eight-month deployment to the Indo-Pacific region as head of an international carrier strike group. “Upholding the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, and with it, the principles of the freedom of navigation, in this part of the world matters to us just as it matters in the
RSS