- China said it’s rolling out new tariffs on meat, fruit and other products from the U.S.Those additional duties are in retalia
- tion to President Donald Trump’s new taxes on steel and aluminum imported into the U.S.All told, the extra tariffs will hit 128 kinds of U.S. products, multiple outlets reported.
- The list of new tariffs matches the list released by China on March 23, according to Reuters.
China said it’s rolling out new tariffs on meat, fruit and other products from the United States as retaliation against taxes approved by U.S. President Donald Trump on imported steel and aluminum.
Thank you for reading this post, don't forget to subscribe!The Chinese finance ministry said in a statement that the new tariffs begin Monday. The announcement follows warnings Chinese officials have made for several weeks in an escalating trade dispute between the world’s two largest economies.
China’s Customs Tariff Commission is increasing the tariff rate on pork products and aluminum scrap by 25 percent. It’s also imposing a new 15 percent tariff on 120 other imported U.S. commodities, from almonds to apples and berries.
All told, the extra tariffs will hit 128 kinds of U.S. products, multiple outlets reported. The list of new tariffs matches the list released by the government on March 23, according to Reuters.
At that time, China said the affected U.S. goods had an import value of $3 billion in 2017 and included wine, fresh fruit, dried fruit and nuts, steel pipes, modified ethanol and ginseng.
The White House didn’t respond to a message from The Associated Press on Sunday seeking comment.
The tariffs mirror Trump’s 25 percent charge on imported steel and 15 percent hike on aluminum. Trump has also announced separate plans to slap tariffs on nearly $50 billion in Chinese imports. Trump’s planned tariffs are partly aimed at punishing Beijing for allegedly stealing American technology and pressuring U.S. companies to hand it over.
But the Chinese response could end up hurting American ranchers and farmers, many of whom are from regions that voted for Trump in 2016.
U.S. farmers shipped nearly $20 billion of goods to China in 2017. The American pork industry sent $1.1 billion in products, making China the No. 3 market for U.S. pork.
Of note, China’s trade retaliation is not against Trump’s announcement in March that he is planning new tariffs on up to $60 billion in Chinese imports. Observers have suggested that Beijing may be saving stronger retaliatory measures for a response to that White House plan.
Either way, expert economists have repeatedly warned over the last weeks that escalating trade tensions between China and the U.S. could damage the world economy.
For one, Nobel Prize-winning economist Robert Shiller said, following China’s first threat of tariffs on 128 products, that uncertainty about tit-for-tat trade measures could result in an “economic crisis.”
“It’s just chaos: It will slow down development in the future if people think that this kind of thing is likely,” he told CNBC.
—CNBC contributed to this report.
