Chinese government has said it would raise tariffs on United States (US) goods to 125 per cent but would ignore further levies by President Donald Trump because it no longer makes economic sense for importers to buy from America.
New Telegraph reports that Beijing’s latest round of retaliation announced on Friday, April 10, brings its levies to 125 per cent, effective Saturday, April 12.
However, the Chinese Finance Ministry said further action by the US will be ignored because, at the current tariff level, there is no possibility of market acceptance for US goods exported to China.
“The United States’ imposition of round upon round of abnormally high tariffs on China has become a numbers game with no practical significance in economics,” Beijing’s commerce ministry said.
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China accused Trump of unleashing turbulence in the market with the sweeping tariffs that have hit the world and said the US should bear full responsibility for the chaos.
After a week of market mayhem as the world’s two largest economies took turns to put up trade barriers, Beijing dismissed Trump’s mounting brinkmanship as a joke and a numbers game.
Recall that Trump has deployed sweeping tariffs, including painfully higher levies for dozens of major economies, as a stick to force manufacturers to base themselves in the United States and for countries to lower barriers to US goods.
However, following market turmoil this week, he blinked first in his push to remodel the post-war system of global commerce and froze many tariffs for 90 days, although he raised them for China to a staggering total of 145 percent.
Beijing also said it would file a lawsuit with the World Trade Organization over the latest round of levies.
