Trade

China Imposes Retaliatory Tariffs on U.S. Goods

Written by SK Ashby

Trump increased his tariffs on $200 billion in Chinese goods from 10 to 25 percent on Friday morning and China has now responded in a similar fashion.

The Chinese government announced this morning that existing tariffs on American goods will increase from 10 to 25 percent.

From CNBC:

Beijing will increase tariffs on more than 5,000 products to as high as 25%. Duties on some other goods will increase to 20%. Those rates will rise from either 10% or 5% previously. [...]

The duties in large part target U.S. farmers, who largely supported Trump in 2016 but suffered from previous shots in the Trump administration’s trade war with China. The thousands of products include peanuts, sugar, wheat, chicken and turkey.

What this means is American businesses that had not already lost access to the largest consumer market in the world probably will now. American exports that may have still been attractive with a tariff of 5 to 10 percent will not be so attractive with a tariff of 20 or 25 percent.

China's increased tariffs on American agricultural products may lead to lower prices here at home as farmers have nowhere else to sell their goods, but everyone reading this will pay more for a much longer list of other things that we import.

The market tanked by 500 points when it opened this morning and is currently down by 650 as of this writing.