Trade tensions between China and the United States have been strained since Trump signed a presidential memo last month to impose a massive 25 percent increase in tariffs on Chinese goods to compensate for U.S. losses on technology.
Yesterday, the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative published on its website a list of Chinese goods that would increase tariffs, most of which are not daily consumables, covering aerospace, information and communications technology, robotics and machinery. It covers about 1300 products worth $60 billion.
The Ministry of Commerce strongly condemns
A spokesman for the Ministry of Commerce of China made remarks at the first time, firmly opposing the US move, seriously violating the basic principles of the World Trade Organization, ignoring the mutually beneficial nature of Sino-US economic and trade cooperation over the past 40 years, and ignoring the interests of consumers in both countries. It is typical of unilateralism and trade protectionism, and China strongly condemns the plan to sue the WTO dispute settlement mechanism immediately.
The Chinese side hopes that the United States will rein in the brink, or else it will also adopt counter-measures of the same scale against US products in the end.
Counteraction of reciprocal measures
In the early hours of April 2 Beijing time, China announced a 25% increase in tariffs on 128 U.S. imports, including pork, fruit, nuts and wine, which came into effect immediately on the same day in response to Trump's measures to increase tariffs. The counter-attack list covers about $3 billion worth of goods.
As soon as the U.S. stock market plummeted at night, the Dow Jones Industrial average fell 458.92 points after falling 758 points on the day, the biggest quarterly loss in more than two years. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index fell 58.99 points to 2581.88, while the Nasdaq Composite Index fell 193.33 points to 6870.12, reentering negative territory.
Australian views
The Australian stock market was also affected by the low opening after Easter, with the Australian dollar hitting a three-month low against the US dollar, and today's exchange rate against the renminbi is 4.83.
The Australian Financial Review newspaper said the trade war between China and the United States had a greater impact on China, as China's exports to the United States added 3 percent of its GDP, while U.S. exports to China accounted for only 0.7 percent of its gross domestic product. For Australia, once China is hit, import and export policy is bound to adjust. Because Australia is heavily dependent on China's economy, this will have a negative impact on the Australian economy, resulting in a 1% reduction in Australia's gross domestic product and a reduction in employment growth by half over the past year. About 285,000 workers face unemployment.
But Terry McCrann, an Australian economist, disagreed that the Sino-US trade war would not have much impact on Australia, reassuring investors and consumers. Because he believes that the snipe and clam competition, the fishing winger, if the trade war really started, Sino-US relations will worsen, Sino-Australian exchanges are bound to increase, on the contrary, Australia's trade is a good thing.