US President Donald Trump yesterday announced 25 percent tariffs targeting US$50 billion of Chinese imports, making good on a pledge to punish the alleged theft of US intellectual property.
The announcement was sure to spark countermeasures by Beijing, which yesterday vowed to strike back quickly if the US hurts its interests, bringing the world’s two largest economies to the brink of an all-out trade war long feared by markets and industry.
However, Trump said in a statement that “additional tariffs” could be levied should China hit back with tit-for-tat duties on US goods and services exports.
Photo: AP
“The United States can no longer tolerate losing our technology and intellectual property through unfair economic practices,” Trump said in the statement. “These tariffs are essential to preventing further unfair transfers of American technology and intellectual property to China, which will protect American jobs.”
The US would begin collecting the tariffs on July 6 on a slimmed-down product list of Chinese goods worth US$34 billion that excludes TVs and other consumer products, the Office of the US Trade Representative said.
The revisions removed 515 items from an initial list published in early April following a public comment period, bringing the list to 818 product lines.
However, the office is adding a second tranche of 284 product lines worth US$16 billion that would bring the total back up to the initial target of US$50 billion.
Trump’s China trade offensive is only one side of his multifront trade confrontation with all major US economic partners.
Trump outraged Canadian, Mexican and European leaders last month by imposing punishing tariffs on imports of steel and aluminum to protect US producers from allegedly unfair competition.
The Trump administration was yesterday also due to release a finalized list of Chinese goods that would face the tariffs.
Washington has also completed a second list of possible tariffs on another US$100 billion of Chinese goods, in the expectation that China will respond to the initial US tariff list in kind, sources said.
US officials have said Beijing has sought industrial dominance in emerging technologies through the theft of American know-how through forced technology transfers, hacking and other forms industrial espionage.
“If the United States takes unilateral, protectionist measures, harming China’s interests, we will quickly react and take necessary steps to resolutely protect our fair, legitimate rights,” Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Geng Shuang (耿爽) told a regular news briefing.
China has published its own list of threatened tariffs on US$50 billion of US goods, including soybeans, aircraft and cars, and has said it would hit back if Washington follows up with further measures.
Beijing and Washington have held three rounds of high-level talks since early last month that have yet to yield a compromise, with Trump unmoved by a Chinese offer to buy an additional US$70 billion of US farm and energy products and other goods, people familiar with the matter have said.
“The threshold to come to a consensus or a compromise seems high,” JPMorgan Asset Management chief market strategist for Asia-Pacific Tai Hui (許長泰) said.
Trump’s revised tariff list might exclude some consumer items from an earlier proposal to focus more on goods related to Beijing’s “Made in China 2025” program, Eurasia Group said in a report.
The initiative is aimed at accelerating China’s prowess and narrowing its competitiveness gap with the US and other industrial powers in key technologies such as robotics and semiconductors.
“US-China trade tensions will be long-lasting,” UBS Wealth Management regional chief investment officer and chief China economist Hu Yifan (胡一帆) said in Beijing.
“The trade skirmish is not just about the trade deficit and exchange rates, but about the rules of the game, market openness and intellectual property. It is also about values, governance and geopolitical disagreements,” she said.
The Philippines is working behind the scenes to enhance its defensive cooperation with Taiwan, the Washington Post said in a report published on Monday. “It would be hiding from the obvious to say that Taiwan’s security will not affect us,” Philippine Secretary of National Defense Gilbert Teodoro Jr told the paper in an interview on Thursday last week. Although there has been no formal change to the Philippines’ diplomatic stance on recognizing Taiwan, Manila is increasingly concerned about Chinese encroachment in the South China Sea, the report said. The number of Chinese vessels in the seas around the Philippines, as well as Chinese
URBAN COMBAT: FIM-92 Stinger shoulder-fired missiles from the US made a rare public appearance during early-morning drills simulating an invasion of the Taipei MRT The ongoing Han Kuang military exercises entered their sixth day yesterday, simulating repelling enemy landings in Penghu County, setting up fortifications in Tainan, laying mines in waters in Kaohsiung and conducting urban combat drills in Taipei. At 5am in Penghu — part of the exercise’s first combat zone — participating units responded to a simulated rapid enemy landing on beaches, combining infantry as well as armored personnel. First Combat Zone Commander Chen Chun-yuan (陳俊源) led the combined armed troops utilizing a variety of weapons systems. Wang Keng-sheng (王鏗勝), the commander in charge of the Penghu Defense Command’s mechanized battalion, said he would give
‘REALISTIC’ APPROACH: The ministry said all the exercises were scenario-based and unscripted to better prepare personnel for real threats and unexpected developments The army’s 21st Artillery Command conducted a short-range air defense drill in Taoyuan yesterday as part of the Han Kuang exercises, using the indigenous Sky Sword II (陸射劍二) missile system for the first time in the exercises. The armed forces have been conducting a series of live-fire and defense drills across multiple regions, simulating responses to a full-scale assault by Chinese forces, the Ministry of National Defense said. The Sky Sword II missile system was rapidly deployed and combat-ready within 15 minutes to defend Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport in a simulated attack, the ministry said. A three-person crew completed setup and
SHIFTING FOCUS: Investment in China fell due to increasing costs, the US-China trade war and China’s economic development slowdown, a spokesperson said The percentage of Taiwanese businesses investing in China has been steadily declining since 2010 due to increased costs, the US-China trade war and the slowdown of China’s economic development, Straits Exchange Foundation (SEF) spokesperson Li Pao-wen (黎寶文) said. In terms of Taiwan’s total outward investment, the percentage of businesses investing in China has dropped from 83.8 percent in 2010 to 11.4 percent in 2023, 7.5 percent last year and 2.7 percent in the first quarter of this year, Li said in an exclusive interview with Liberty Times, the Taipei Times’ sister paper. Li said that 70 percent of these businesses experienced
RSS