BEIJING – China will impose additional tariffs on U.S. imports worth about 75 billion U.S. dollars in response to the newly announced U.S. tariff hikes on Chinese goods, the Customs Tariff Commission of the State Council announced Friday.
The tariffs of 5 to 10 per cent will apply to 5,078 items from the US, starting September 1 and December 15, China’s state council tariff Customs Tariff Commission of the State Council said.
“China’s adoption of punitive tariff measures is forced under the pressure of US unilateralism and trade protectionism,” the office said.
Beijing also announced it will impose a 25pc tariff on US autos and a 5pc tariff on auto parts from starting December 15, in what appears to be beginning of fresh tiff between the economic giants.
Reacting to the move, US President fired a series of tweets and claimed that China had stolen ‘our Intellectual Property at a rate of Hundreds of Billions of Dollars a year’.
https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1164914960046133249
https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1164914963766546435
The US president said the vast amounts of ‘money made and stolen by China from the United States, year after year, for decades, will and must STOP’.
The escalating trade war is perpetuating fears of a possible recession in the US as the tariffs are expected to hit global trade and both countries’ growth.
US President Donald Trump imposed steep tariffs on $250 billion in Chinese goods, with a further $300 billion in imports targeted for new duties in two more rounds, September 1 and December 15.
Meanwhile, China has responded with duties on around $110 billion of US goods — or nearly all of the $120 billion worth of American goods it imported last year.
The tariff hikes by the US “have led to the continuous escalation of China-US economic and trade frictions, violating the consensus reached by the two heads of state in Argentina and the consensus reached in Osaka”, China’s State Council Tariff Commission Office said in a statement.
US stocks open lower as China announces new tariffs
Wall Street stocks opened lower Friday after China announced another round of tariffs on US goods, the latest escalation in the protracted trade war between the countries.
About 15 minutes into trading, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was at 26,149.07, down 0.4 percent.
The broad-based S&P 500 also slid 0.5 percent to 2,909.84, while the tech-rich Nasdaq Composite Index fell 0.6 percent to 7,944.74.
China’s tariff announcement came just before a widely-anticipated speech by Federal Reserve Chair Jay Powell that is expected to offer clues on the likelihood of further interest rate cuts.
Beijing’s punitive tariffs target $75 billion worth of US imports and will range from 5 percent to 10 percent on 5,078 items, China’s state council tariff office said.
Beijing also announced it will impose a 25 percent tariff on US autos and a 5 percent tariff on auto parts starting December 15.
China had vowed action after President Donald Trump earlier this announced tariffs on $300 billion in Chinese imports, levies that will take effect in September and December.
Powell, meanwhile, is due to address an annual central banker gathering in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. The Fed last month cut interest rates for the first time in more than a decade.
Futures markets expect another rate cut in September, but some regional Fed presidents on Thursday expressed reticence about cutting interest rates again so soon.
Among individual companies, cloud computing company Salesforce surged 5.6 percent as it lifted its full-year revenue forecast after a 22 percent jump in second-quarter sales to $4.0 billion.
Hasbro dropped 5.7 percent after announcing it will acquire Entertainment One for $4.0 billion in cash, a purchase that includes the “Peppa Pig” and “PJ Masks” brands.
