09/18/2018
"President Trump upped the stakes for Beijing Monday, first by saying that the new 10% tariffs on $200 billion in Chinese goods would take effect in only one week’s time. Then he reiterated a threat to hit another $267 billion of Chinese imports with tariffs if Beijing retaliates. Combined with goods already hit with punitive levies, the total would exceed the $505 billion in Chinese goods the U.S. imported last year.
Because China imports far fewer goods from the U.S.—just under $130 billion last year—Beijing is running out of products to penalize.
“The U.S. is in the driver’s seat,” a Chinese official said."
An ally of Mr. Liu’s vented Tuesday about the pressure from Washington. “Negotiations can’t be done with this kind of tactic,” Fang Xinghai, vice chairman of the China Securities Regulatory Commission, said at a World Economic Forum meeting in the coastal city of Tianjin.
“It may work with some small country,” he said. “It doesn’t work with China.” The new U.S. tariffs, he said, have “poisoned the atmosphere for negotiations.”
The $60 billion worth of U.S. goods China said last month it would hit with retaliatory tariffs of 5% to 25% include farm products, machinery and chemicals. The levies, if implemented, would come on top of the tariffs on $50 billion in American goods that are already in force, bringing the total amount of U.S. products subject to Chinese tariffs to $110 billion—or 85% of U.S. goods entering China last year, according to U.S. statistics.
“Contrary to views in Washington, China can—and will—dig its heels in and we are not optimistic about the prospect for a resolution in the short term,” William Zarit, a business consultant and chairman of the chamber, said Tuesday."
China announced new tariffs on $60 billion of U.S. goods, following up on retaliation pledges after the Trump administration’s move to impose levies on $200 billion of Chinese imports.
