White House tells China to fix trade practices

But nothing hit as hard and quickly as the rapidly escalating trade war with the U.S.

The People’s Bank of China has announced new requirements for certain types of trading in the yuan, measures that are aimed at stabilising the currency.

The Customs Tariff Commission of the State Council on Friday unveiled lists of 5,207 items of USA products to be subject to additional tariffs of four different rates – 25 percent, 20 percent, 10 percent, and 5 percent. It has also slapped 25 percent tariffs on $34 billion worth of Chinese imports.

Beijing had retaliated by imposing similar charges on the same amount of USA products. China immediately vowed to retaliate though at the same time urged the United States to act rationally and return to talks to resolve the row.

The bottom line: The tariffs do raise money for the US government, but it’s a small amount – and it’s mostly being paid for by Americans.

“We’ve been ripped off by China for a long time”, Trump declared during the interview.

It was the latest in a series of tariffs, with the first being imposed by Trump back in early February. And he said this approach has paid huge dividends, reviving the American steel industry and bringing manufacturing jobs to the US. “It’s the more far-reaching, unintended consequences, which you don’t always know at the beginning”.

Amid the more heated rhetoric, USA stocks ended the week up about 0.8 per cent, the fifth straight week of advances.

Jaguar Land Rover, the UK’s biggest vehicle firm, also recently reported a loss for the first time in three years after sales slowed down in China.

Trump portrays the tariffs as a tax on foreigners, but the reality is that tariffs are taxes on US companies and consumers. Research later conducted on those tariffs found they negatively impacted employment and the USA economy.

Kudlow told Bloomberg Television on Friday the United States and Europe were making progress in their trade talks and could announce some agreements within the next month. For them, the central objective is to block China’s economic and technological development under its “Made in China 2025”, plan which they regard as the most significant threat to the economic, and ultimately military, supremacy of the US.

There’s no end in sight, and the dispute could chill global trade and economic growth.

The ministry also said that the United States measures violated the World Trade Organization rules and damaged China’s interests. The new list included more machinery and aerospace products.

The announcement came after the Office of the United States Trade Representative announced earlier this week that it was considering increasing the proposed additional duty on $200 billion of Chinese products from 10 percent to 25 percent. But in the meantime, foreign nations are imposing tariffs on some US goods such as soybeans and whiskey. The most significant counter-measure so far, though it was not labelled as such by China, was the blocking of the $44 billion Qualcomm takeover of the Dutch semiconductor firm NXP.

June 18: China said it would retaliate with equivalent tariffs on American products.

The dispute is part of broader USA complaints about global trading conditions that have prompted Trump to raise duties on steel, aluminum, washing machines or solar panels from Canada, Europe, Japan and South Korea.

The goal of the talks was to “prepare for more formal negotiations” but the progress had been slowed down due to the mistrust on both the sides, the Post quoted official sources as saying.

China continues to move forward while for USA farmers, the trade war has represented a major step backwards. Trump has said he is determined to reduce the large United States trade deficit with China.

The trade deficit with China rose by nearly 1% to $33.5bn. China has denied violating global trade norms.