China prepares to strike back in trade spat, aims tariffs at S$3.95b of US goods
BEIJING - China is planning to impose its own tariffs on US imports, in retaliation against tariffs on Chinese goods that the White House has announced.
Beijing is readying tariffs on 28 products that China imports from the US ranging from fresh fruits and wine to steel pipes and recycled aluminium worth US$3 billion (S$3.9 billion), a spokesman for the Ministry of Commerce said on Friday (March 23).
The Ministry said the proposed import taxes were in response to the White House's March 1 announcement of steel and aluminium tariffs entering the US, signalling that China could be preparing a much larger round of retaliatory tariffs following Mr Trump's decision to further sanction Chinese products.
Mr Trump on Friday ordered the US Trade Representative (USTR) to publish in 15 days a list of Chinese products it intends to target with tariffs.
The goal is to levy up to US$ 50 billion worth of tariffs, to compensate for what the US deems China's predatory economic practices, determined by a "Section 301" investigation by the USTR.
Responding to the White House announcement, Chinese Ambassador to the US Cui Tiankai said it was groundless and discriminatory to accuse China of stealing American firms' intellectual property.
The end result of sanctions is damage to the American middle-class' pocket book, the balance sheet of American firms, and its people's confidence in the US long-term economic prospects, he added.
"I hope that people here will realise that people in China and in other developing countries are also fully capable of innovation," he said in a message on Facebook.
"It should not be viewed that (Americans) have a monopoly over innovation, and everybody else is just stealing from them."
State media have slammed Mr Trump's latest move, and said China will fight back against the US' misplaced attempts at shifting blame for its economic woes.
China Daily said that Mr Trump was trying to fool the US public that tariffs on imported goods would benefit them, when it would worsen inequality in the US and punish working families with higher prices on household basics.
"Compared to a world with no trade, median-income consumers in the US gain an estimated 29 per cent of their purchasing power from trade (according to a 2015 study)," it said. "But Trump does not want American people to know this. Instead, he has constantly painted US as a victim in global trade."
Nationalistic tabloid Global Times said in an editorial that the Trump administration's latest moves are "playing with fire and it will end in disaster for the US".
"Washington should dismiss the idea that China will concede in this trade war because it will find no white flags to mark China's surrender," it said.
"Instead, Washington will charge blindly into a bullfighter's red cape."
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