President Trump has signed a presidential memorandum directing the U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer to draw up a list of Chinese products on which tariffs could be imposed. The list will be made public in 15 days, and tariffs will take effect after a 60-day comment period:
The US plans to impose tariffs on up to $60bn (£42.5bn) in Chinese goods and limit the country's investment in the US in retaliation for years of alleged intellectual property theft.
The White House said the actions were necessary to counter unfair competition from China's state-led economy. It said years of talks had failed to produce change. China said it was ready to retaliate with "necessary measures". Beijing also said it would "fight to the end" in any trade war with the US.
US stock markets closed lower on Thursday, as investors responded to the announcement. [...] The White House said it has a list of more than 1,000 products that could be targeted by tariffs of 25%. Businesses will have the opportunity to comment before the final list goes into effect.
Reuters portrays the action as "far removed from threats that could have ignited a global trade war". Bloomberg notes that many industry trade groups and companies are opposing the tariffs.
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(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 23 2018, @03:10PM
“So do we keep buying from them or tell the Chinese gov't to fuck off and take our business elsewhere?”
Yes. It is better than tariffs. But requires due diligence by each consumer. And a willingness to pay abit more. More planning and less keeping up with the Jones. Which is funny enough what it sounds like the Chinese plan to do to us.
Remember when Walmart was buy American? I used to shop there.
But it isn’t only buy American that would be to hard. But buy American and from countries that don’t fuck us like China.
Tariffs won’t accomplish what a good Rosie Riveter style campaign to unite us into buying from those who play mostly fair with us.