The trade dispute between the US and China is getting heavier and once again the American president, Donald Trump, is raising the bar, threatening a new wave of tariffs on imports from Beijing.
In detail, the head of the White House asked the US Trade Representative to identify another 200 billion dollars of Chinese goods to be subjected to further tariffs. The measure will be implemented if Beijing carries out its announcement two days ago about the imposition of 25% tariffs on 50 billion dollars of US-made goods, which in turn would be a retaliation on the first tariffs imposed by the Americans. If the US administration carries out its threat, the tariff increases would affect 90% of the 505 billion dollars of imports of Chinese products that crossed the US border in 2017. The total of the maneuver would thus rise to 450 billion dollars.
China has shown that it wants to "keep the United States at a permanent and unfair disadvantage - accuses Trump - After the completion of the necessary legal process, the tariffs will come into force if China refuses to change its practices, and if it insists on 'imposition of the new tariffs it recently announced'. However, the Chinese know that they have much more limited room for maneuver as the amount of goods exported from the US is decidedly lower than the reverse flow: 130 billion dollars "only".
Trump assures that he is "on excellent terms with President Xi" and that he wants to continue to "collaborate on various issues", but warns that "trade relations between China and the US must become much more balanced" and that "the United States will not let rather than other countries such as China taking advantage of them on the commercial side”.
The escalation seems unstoppable, considering that Beijing has already said it is ready to respond again: the Ministry of Commerce has defined Trump's "blackmail" and has promised a harsh reaction.
According to China, with these new moves the United States "depart from the line agreed in various bilateral meetings and deeply disappoint the international community. If the US acts irrationally and publishes a list of goods to hit, China will have no choice but to respond with equal harshness".
On the financial markets, the new clash has triggered a wave of sell-offs on stock exchanges all over the world, starting with the Chinese ones: Shanghai closed down by 3,82%, while Shenzhen even suffered a collapse of 5,8%. But during the morning the price lists
