San José, CA – On Friday, October 10, President Trump announced that he would be ordering an increase in tariffs on imports from China by 100%. If applied to all imports, this would increase the average tariffs rate on goods from China to 150%. The tariffs would into effect on November 1. On fears that Trump was reigniting his tariff-driven trade war, the stock market sank on Friday, with the broad S&P 500 index dropping 2.7%, the largest drop since April.
Trump was reacting to China’s announcement late Wednesday that it was strengthening its export regulation of rare earths and their products, in particular to prevent diversion to use by hostile militaries. China, in turn was reacting to the United States strengthening its export controls on computer chips in September. China also responded to the imposition of U.S. port fees on Chinese-operated and Chinese-built ships with similar regulations, which mainly fell on ships with some U.S. ownership.
Many people knowledgeable about China were left wondering why Trump reacted with higher tariffs, since the April escalation of tariffs to over 140% didn’t work. If anything, China’s economy may be even stronger to withstand another round of U.S. tariffs than it was in April. The latest trade report from China showed that while China’s exports to the United States had dropped more than 25% in September as compared to a year ago, overall exports had risen 8.3%. This shows that China has been successful in expanding trade with the rest of the world to more than offset the loss of U.S. markets.
China’s imports also rose 7.4% in September as compared to a year earlier. This is a sign that China’s economy is doing relatively well, as a growing economy will buy more imports. Here too China has managed to buy imports from other countries such as Brazil, which has become China’s main source of soybeans instead of U.S. farmers.
While China has pledged to retaliate if and when the Trump administration goes through with the high tariffs, there are still more than two weeks for Trump to back off.
#SanJoseCA #CA #CapitalismAndEconomy #Trump #Tariffs #China
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- Will not affect sales because US cannot make most of that stuff at 3x the price.
- Will not get USA the rare earths they need for local manufacturing. Maybe they should have not ignored the Chinese monopoly in mining and refining built over the last decade.