The US president has vowed to keep levies in place until Beijing makes a “deal”.
The United States has hiked tariffs on all Chinese imports to a staggering 104%, escalating the ongoing trade conflict and wiping out another $1.5 trillion from US stock markets on Tuesday.
China had originally been set to face a 34% tariff increase on Wednesday, as part of President Donald Trump’s so-called “reciprocal” measure targeting virtually all US trade partners. However, after Beijing responded with a proportional 34% duty of its own, the US president raised the blanket tariff to a total of 104%.
“After all of the abuses they’ve perpetrated, China is attempting to impose additional unjustified tariffs,” Trump said at the National Republican Congressional Committee dinner in Washington on Tuesday.
That’s why additional tariffs on Chinese goods are in place, effective midnight tonight at 104 percent. Until they make a deal with us, that’s what it’s going to be.
The president went on to say that Beijing would have to “make a deal at some point,” claiming that “they just don’t know how to get it sorted because they’re proud people.” Until then, he added, China “will now pay a big number to our Treasury.”
The US administration said that nearly 70 countries had sought negotiations to mitigate the impact of the tariffs, as Trump pursues “tailor-made deals” with individual nations.
Beijing has previously condemned the escalating trade war as a form of “blackmail” and “economic bullying.” A spokesperson for the Commerce Ministry said on Tuesday that “China will fight till the end if the US side is bent on going down the wrong path.”
The White House has already published an amendment to the April 2 executive order in which Trump declared a “national emergency arising from conditions reflected in large and persistent annual US goods trade deficits.”
The latest escalation has had a significant impact on US and global stock markets. Major indices such as the S&P 500, Dow Jones, and Nasdaq suffered further declines after a brief surge earlier this week, wiping an estimated $1.5 trillion from US markets on Tuesday.
Trump acknowledged that the fallout from his move was “somewhat explosive,” but defended his strategy, claiming that “sometimes you have to mix it up a little bit.” He insisted the tariffs were necessary to address perceived trade “abuses” and to promote domestic manufacturing, adding that the US is already generating $2 billion a day from the levies.
Image credit: Getty Images
Want to see how stupid the US can be, well here it is…..
All countries impose tarrifs, why not America, its free trade.
The US WAS stupid by not imposing tariffs before and allowed most countries to “take the piss” out of the US: It’s like the US wants to be liked so much it has allowed itself to be abused in the past decades.
No more under President Trump because now the US is imposing tariffs. It should be noted that the US tariffs are only about half of what other countries are imposing and look at how the other countries are screaming.
Under President Trump, the US has found common sense again. Other countries are angry and the MSM is screaming about this 24/7 because they know that the game is up.
China is in no mood to back down
The US seems to think it has the upper hand
I’m not so sure
In the meantime Trump is proposing a 1$trillion dollar military budget
For every action there is a reaction
This has the potential backfire spectacularly and blow up in Trumps face
Ending up like every other one of His business ventures resulting in failure and fiscal collapse
The American taxpayer will be a lot worse off unless Trump moves to tariffs as an indirect tax and shutting down the IRS which is hard to see
Whatever in the interim US consumers will be paying direct and indirect taxes of substantial amounts in an already depressed and downtrodden economy marked by high unemployment and bleak employment opportunities
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/china-dumping-us-treasuries-221754241.html
Well, well take a sit and get the popcorn !!
$761 billion is a drop in Uncle Sam’s piss pot compared to the increase of US National debt by $8 trillion for a virus has never been proven to exist by the previous Trump administration