US President Donald Trump’s Chinese import tariff war seems to be getting tougher with his announcement to intensify his trade war with China by slapping tariffs on all USD500 billion of imports from the country.
“I’m ready to go to 500,” he said in an interview with a news channel.
The comments by the President comes just before the most recent round of US tariffs that will take time to effect.
In an earlier announcement last week, Washington listed a total of USD200 billion worth of more Chinese products that it wants to bring into the tariff circle as soon as September.
The list included more than 6,000 items like food products, minerals and consumer goods like handbags. The tariff that would be levied upon them is 10%.
The tariffs are still under public consultation ending in the month of August.
Trump also acknowledged the fact that a strengthening dollar has been hurting US business.
In several of his tweets, he put up the blame of higher dollar on currency “manipulation” by China and the European Union.
The US Federal Reserve was also criticized by Mr. Trump for raising interest rates.
“The United States should not be penalized because we are doing so well. Tightening now hurts all we have done,” he said in a tweet.
Both the countries, the US and China, have already imposed revengeful tariffs of USD34bn on each other’s goods. The threat by the President of USA to raise that to further USD500bn represents a major escalation.
“We’re down a tremendous amount,” Mr. Trump told a News Channel, reiterating his view that China’s trade surplus with the US amounts to unfair trading practices.
Over the question, if the move might cause a stock market sell-off, he responded: “Well, if it does, it does. Look, I’m not doing this for politics. I’m doing this to do this right thing for our country.”
Apart from that, the US also wants China to put an end to such practices that allegedly encourage transfer of intellectual property particularly design and product ideas to Chinese companies.
Previously, Mr. Trump has hinted at such an escalation by telling journalists two weeks ago that there was “$300bn in abeyance” after the $200bn of goods covered by the latest list, but this time its most explicit threat yet by him.
Many of the US companies do not like the administration’s use of tariffs against China by saying that they are at high risk by getting their business and the economy hurt without any likely change in behavior.
After the interview broadcast, European stock markets fell, with the FTSE 100 down 0.4% in afternoon trade.
“It’s proof, if it were needed, that the president is prepared to go all the way in the trade war to exact concessions from China, which simply cannot match the US firepower,” said Neil Wilson, chief market analyst for Markets.com.
“In light of the EU and others saying they are ready to respond to tariffs on cars, the stakes are rising fast. Whether we get to the point where there is a full-blown trade war remains debatable, but the odds are shortening by the day.”
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