President Donald Trump's latest round of punitive tariffs on China took effect on Monday, adding $200 billion in Chinese imports to the escalating trade war that is clouding the global economic horizon. The new attack on Beijing brings the amount of goods hit by duties to more than $250 billion, roughly half of Chinese exports to the United States, and increasingly consumers will feel the pain in their wallets directly.
Trump has hit 12 percent of total US imports this year alone. Defiant in the face of increasing fears about the impact to the US economy, Trump has threatened to go after 100 percent of imports from China if the country refuses to change policies he says harm US industry, particularly the theft of American technology. "These practices plainly constitute a grave threat to the long-term health and prosperity of the United States economy," he said in announcing the tariffs last week. "We are going to win it," his Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told "Fox News Sunday." "We're going to get an outcome which forces China to behave in a way that if you want to be a power -- a global power -- transparency, rule of law, you don't steal intellectual property." Beijing has promised to strike back on Monday with duties on $60 billion in American goods, bringing the total to $110 billion, nearly everything China buys from the United States. But Trump warned he could ramp up to "phase three," slapping tariffs on approximately $267 billion of additional imports, or the entirety of the goods the US buys from China. Dialogue between the world's two biggest economies appears severed. Beijing cancelled the visit of a Chinese negotiating team expected September 27-28 in Washington, The Wall Street Journal said. Previous talks in late August were ineffective. In that context, the International Monetary Fund has warned about the potential for "significant economic costs," including slower growth. "Should the escalation go further, the economic costs for both countries and around the world will quickly add up," IMF spokesman Gerry Rice said last week.
AFP