In the continually escalating trade war between the US and the rest of the world, China is now considering putting tariffs on 60 billion dollars’ worth of US goods as a response to US’s tariffs on 200 billion dollars’ worth of Chinese products.
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China is proposing putting tariffs on some 60 billion dollars’ worth of US goods as retaliation to the tariffs proposed by the US a few days ago on 200 billion dollars’ worth of Chinese goods. The tariffs, proposed by the Trump administration, would be of 25%. Meanwhile, Chinese tariffs range from 5 to 25%, affecting over 5 000 different American goods.
The tariffs proposed by China cover specific products such as liquefied natural gas (LNG), aircrafts, condoms, specific types of food, such as sugar, meat or coffee, as well as chemicals and others.
Last month already, the US and China had implemented tariffs on specific products, for a total of 34 billion dollars on each side. China’s tariffs hit specific parts of the US economy that had massively voted Trump, such as farmers, and more specifically, soybean farmers. The situation has been partly resolved, with the European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker meeting with US President Trump at the end of July to discuss tariffs, and “pledging” to import more US soybeans and LNG, even if, in reality, European companies had started to do so already naturally, due to shifts in the free market. For instance, the Chinese tariffs on US soybeans pushed Chinese companies to import Brazilian soybeans instead, lowering the price of US soybeans, and therefore European companies switching providers and increasing their imports of US soybeans.
The current Chinese policy is to retaliate each time the US imposes tariffs on Chinese goods by imposing tariffs on US goods, but, while the US imported around 500 billion dollars’ worth of Chinese goods last year, China only imported around 130 billion dollars of US goods, meaning China’s weapons in this trade war are very limited.
It is unclear whether somebody is winning or losing in the current trade war, with the Trump administration announcing aid for farmers affected by the tariffs. The aid package put together by the US Department of Agriculture is worth some 12 billion dollars, and will be paid to farmers signing up, starting in September of this year, right before the congressional elections.
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