President Trump, frustrated by increasingly fruitless negotiations with China, has imposed a 10 per cent tariff on an additional $300 billion worth of Chinese imports next month, a significant escalation in a trade war that has dragged on for more than a year.
The new tariff would come on top of the 25 per cent levy that Mr Trump has already imposed on $250 billion worth of Chinese imports, resulting in the United States taxing nearly everything China sends to the United States, from iPhones to New Balance sneakers to children’s books.
Trump had agreed in June not to impose more tariffs after meeting with the Chinese president, Xi Jinping, and agreeing to restart trade talks. But Mr Trump said he was moving ahead with the levies as of Sept. 1 as punishment for China’s failure to live up to its commitments, including buying more American agricultural products and stemming the flow of fentanyl into the United States.
“Until such time as there is a deal, we’ll be taxing them,” Mr Trump told reporters on the White House lawn.
Mr. Trump’s move will most likely be met with reciprocal punishment by China. On the sidelines of a meeting of Southeast Asian officials in Bangkok on Friday, Wang Yi, China’s foreign minister, told reporters that “adding tariffs is definitely not the correct way to resolve economic and trade frictions.”
