China is considering exempting some US imports from its 125 percent tariffs and is asking businesses to identify goods that could be eligible in the biggest sign yet that Beijing is worried about the economic fallout from its trade war with Washington.
A Chinese Ministry of Commerce task force is collecting lists of items that could be exempted from tariffs and is asking companies to submit their own requests, said a source who spoke on the condition of anonymity.
Financial news magazine Caijing yesterday said that Beijing was preparing to include eight semiconductor-related items, but not memory chips.
Photo: Reuters
“The Chinese government, for example, has been asking our companies what sort of things are you importing to China from the US that you cannot find anywhere else and so would shut down your supply chain,” American Chamber of Commerce in China president Michael Hart said yesterday.
Some chamber members say they have imported goods in the past week without the new tariffs being applied, Hart added.
A list of 131 categories of products eligible for exemptions was circulating widely on social media, and among businesses and trade groups yesterday. Reuters could not verify the list, whose items ranged from vaccines and chemicals to jet engines.
While Beijing’s real course of action remains unknown, Huatai Securities Co (華泰證券) analyzed the list circulating in trade groups and said it corresponded to US$45 billion of imports last year.
Repeated telephone calls to China’s customs department were not answered. Customs and the Chinese Ministry of Commerce did not respond to faxed questions.
While Washington has said the current situation is economically untenable and already offered tariff exemptions to some electronic goods, China has repeatedly said it is willing to fight to the end unless the US lifts its tariffs, but beneath the bombast, China’s economy is entering the trade war flirting with deflation. Demand is weak, and consumer spending and sentiment have never properly recovered from COVID-19 pandemic levels.
The Chinese government is pushing tariff-hit exporters to pivot to local markets, but companies said profits are lower, demand weaker and customers less reliable.
Exemptions are a bigger gesture of support, although by allowing some trade to resume, they also reduce the pain for the US economy and take some pressure off the White House.
Many imports, ranging from petrochemical ethane to pharmaceuticals, have few easy alternatives or could take years to manufacture outside the US.
Big pharmaceutical companies including AstraZeneca and GSK have at least one manufacturing site in the US for drugs sold in China, Chinese government data showed.
Major ethane processors have already sought tariff waivers from Beijing, because the US is the only supplier.
Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Guo Jiakun (郭嘉昆) yesterday said that he was not familiar with the specifics of whether China was planning tariff exemptions on some US imports.
Guo reiterated at a regular news conference that China and the US were not having any consultations or negotiations on tariffs.
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