Just a few hours ago, at around 00: 40 a.m., President Trump formally signed a presidential memo sanctioning so-called "acts of economic aggression" against China.
This also means that the trade war between China and the United States has been officially launched by the United States!
According to Trump at the White House press conference early this morning, he believes that China is very unfair to the United States in terms of trade and tariffs; He said that the United States is constantly being "infringed" by China through "mandatory technology transfer" and even "theft" by means of "forced technology transfer" and even "theft" as a "significant backing for the development of the US economy."
He also mentioned China's huge trade surplus with the United States today. In his words, China's trade surplus with the United States is about $500 billion, compared with a deficit of $800 billion between the United States and the world, which means China alone accounts for more than half.
Trump therefore declared that he must change all this and defend the interests of the United States.
The memo, which he has signed to impose sanctions on China, would impose tariffs on Chinese imports worth about $60 billion.
According to a new report by the New York Times, there are about 1300 kinds of Chinese products that will be taxed on everything from shoes and clothing to electronics. The details will be announced in about 15 days by the U.S. Trade Department.
Trump went on to elaborate that his tariff policy was a "counterpart" to China's long-standing tariffs on American products, namely, "if you tax our products," We will also tax you on the same products.
Not only that, Trump also made another excessive request to China at a press conference early this morning: the need to reduce the $100 billion trade surplus with the United States.
At the moment, the U.S. stock market has expressed apparent concern about Trump's move. According to Reuters, all three U.S. stock indexes fell more than 1.5 percent as investors feared that Trump's actions would directly trigger a trade war between China and the United States.
On the other hand, just yesterday, our Ministry of Commerce in China issued a warning to Trump: we are firmly opposed to such unilateralism and trade protectionism. China will never let its legitimate rights and interests be harmed and will take all necessary measures to resolutely defend its legitimate rights and interests.
A spokesman for the Chinese Foreign Ministry also said: China does not want to fight a trade war with anyone, but if someone has to force us to fight, then we will not be afraid, and we will not hide.
Finally, it is worth mentioning that Trump's side orchestrated the core figure of this trade war with China, "hawkish" American trade representative Robert Leitschize (Robert Lighthizer), It's "not enough" to impose tariffs on Trump's $60 billion worth of Chinese products.
According to the New York Times, what he really wants to hit is the high-tech products and industries in our "made in China 2025" strategy launched by the Chinese government.
"these are what I care about," he said.
It seems that the United States is really anxious about the rise of China's technology and products. .