China retaliates with tariffs on US imports

Donald Trump

China has imposed new tariffs on 128 US imports worth $3 billion, including fruits and pork, in retaliation to US duties on steel and aluminium, fuelling fears of a trade war. Beijing's move, which the Xinhua news agency said was decided by the custom tariffs commission of the State Council, follows weeks of heated rhetoric between the world's two biggest economies.

President Donald Trump has repeatedly railed against China's massive trade surplus over the US, promising during the election campaign to slash the US deficit. Beijing had warned last month that it was considering the tariffs of 15 per cent and 25 per cent on a range of products that also include wine, nuts and aluminium scrap. The tariffs came into force yesterday, the finance ministry said in a statement.

The levies are in response to tariffs of 10 per cent on aluminium and 25 per cent on steel that have also angered US allies. Trump, however, has temporarily suspended the tariffs for the European Union as well as Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, Mexico and South Korea. China has called on the US to stop its "economic intimidation" and warned it was ready to hit back.

But, Beijing has so far held fire against major agricultural products such as soybeans or major industries such as aerospace giant Boeing - items that state-run daily, the Global Times, suggests should be targeted. The nationalistic newspaper said in an editorial last week that China has "nearly completed its list of retaliatory tariffs on US products and will release it soon."

"The list will involve major Chinese imports from the US," the newspaper wrote, without saying which items were on the document. "This will deal a heavy blow to Washington that aggressively wields the stick of trade war and will make the US pay a price for its radical trade policy toward China," the Global Times wrote.

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