China has increased tariffs by up to 25 percent on 128 U.S. products, from frozen pork and wine to certain fruits and nuts, escalating a dispute between the world's biggest economies in response to U.S. duties on imports of aluminum and steel.
The tariffs, which take effect on Monday, were announced late on Sunday by China's finance ministry and matched a list of possible tariffs on up to $3 billion in U.S. goods published by China on March 23.
Soon after the announcement, an editorial in the widely read Global Times newspaper warned that if the United States had thought China would not retaliate or would only take symbolic countermeasures, it could "say goodbye to that delusion".
"Even though China and the U.S. have not publicly said they are in a trade war, the sparks of such a war have already started to fly," the newspaper said.
The Ministry of Commerce said it was suspending its obligations to the World Trade Organization (WTO) to reduce tariffs on 120 U.S. goods, including fruit and ethanol. The tariffs on those products will be raised by an extra 15 percent.
Eight other products, including pork and scrap aluminum, would now be subject to additional tariffs of 25 percent, it said, with the measures effective starting April 2.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 03 2018, @02:13PM
What they are saying is the Chinese don't want our waste Aluminum. Which is good, since that will result in lower domestic scrap aluminum costs for domestic manufacturing. We've been sending it to them, they were sending it back to us as products. With a lower material price, there will be more domestic aluminum products manufacturing.
Same with the pork tarriff. U.S. pork is exported to China because we have high food safety standards, and Chinese pork is exported to the U.S. because it is cheaper due to lower standards. So Americans will now be eating better pork, and premium pork prices in Bejing will compel their safety standards to improve. Boo Hoo.
And the jeans tarriff? Well the only part of those jeans that is American made is the label, which is sewed on mostly in Puerto Rico. I don't think those guys and gals will mind sewing a different label on the jeans every day so that management can get a slightly better margin.
And nuts? Well most of the ones that aren't peanuts come from California, who is having some hydrological engineering problems. So the price on domestic nuts will be going up no matter how you cut it. More for us, less for them. No problem there either.
Ethanol? Isn't that heavily subsidized? So you mean tax dollars aren't being spent domestically to produce products consumed abroad?
I'm having a hard time finding the problem here.