Trump draws ire of farmers targeted in Chinese trade dispute

Such benefits are largely dismissed by those who cast Chinese students in the U.S.as national-security threats.

“At the end of the day it’s us common people who will pay the bill because fruits will become pricier”, said one user on China’s Twitter-like Weibo service, where the potential US-China trade war ranked as the most-read topic on Friday.

China announced plans for reciprocal tariffs on $3 billion of imports from the US, including products from steel to pork, after President Donald Trump’s move to order levies on a range of Chinese goods sent markets plunging.

The embassy said China had shown “sincerity in making reasonable suggestions” and made “great efforts” to deal with the current trade imbalance with the United States.

“Even without the tariffs, with such low prices, we will use more domestic pork for our Chinese business”, said Luis Chein, a company director at WH Group, China’s top pork producer and its biggest importer of USA pork. “China will not sit idly by while legitimate rights and interests are hurt”, the ministry added.

On the phone, he accused a U.S. investigation of violating worldwide trade rules and told Mnuchin that Beijing was ready to defend its interests, Xinhua said. “China hopes the United States will pull back from the brink, make prudent decisions, and avoid dragging bilateral trade relations to a unsafe place”.

The Commerce Ministry urged Washington to negotiate a prompt settlement to the conflict over Trump’s tariff hike on steel and aluminum but set no deadline. After his top trade officials said the Sunday before the announcement several weeks ago that there would be no exemptions, Trump gave Canada and Mexico a pass at the signing ceremony.

The American Chamber of Commerce in China said its members wanted the US administration to advocate more strongly for a level playing field and reciprocal treatment to improve market access -despite concerns that the current actions could disrupt the global economy. “China should first take measures to deal a blow to the industries in US states that helped Trump win the 2016 presidential election and those states whose political leaders are still backing him in this year’s midterm election”.

“The Chinese side urges the USA side to resolve the concerns of the Chinese side as soon as possible”, the ministry said.

The nationalistic state-run tabloid Global Times warned that China may retaliate by targeting American exports tied to Trump’s base.

At a time when US wine exports have been slipping overall, there’s been growth in exports to China, where a rapidly growing middle class is adopting many Western tastes.

On those and other issues, Bolton, a former United Nations ambassador under President George W. Bush, is seen as heralding a rightward shift in Trump’s foreign policy and an embrace of more hard-line policies. Aircraft makers like Boeing could also be vulnerable.

“No one will emerge a victor from a trade war”, Premier Li Keqiang stressed Tuesday. Trump is also directing his officials to pursue a World Trade Organization complaint against China for discriminatory licensing practices.

China’s proposed tariff hikes in response to the steel and aluminum duties appeared to be aimed at increasing domestic US pressure on Trump by making clear which exporters, including farm areas that voted for the president in 2016, might be hurt. “We have a very serious problem of losing our intellectual property”. The administration argues that years of negotiations with China have failed to produce results.

In fact, the commerce ministry said on its website that the USA move, restricting imports on national security grounds, “has severely undermined the multilateral trade system led by the WTO, disrupted global trade order, and has drawn opposition from other WTO members”.