Trump threatens more China tariffs
China warned it was fully prepared to respond with a fierce counter strike of fresh trade measures
This is if the United States follows through on President Donald Trump’s threat to slap tariffs on an additional $100 billion of Chinese goods.
Trump, in light of what he called China’s “unfair retaliation” against earlier U.S. trade actions, had upped the ante on Thursday by ordering U.S. officials to identify extra tariffs, escalating a tit-for-tat confrontation with potentially damaging consequences for the world’s two biggest economies.
China’s Commerce Ministry spokesman, Gao Feng, calling the U.S. action “extremely mistaken” and unjustified, said the spat was a struggle between unilateralism and multilateralism and that no negotiations were likely in the current circumstances.
“The result of this behavior is to smash your own foot with a stone,” Gao told a news briefing in Beijing. “If the United States announces an additional $100 billion list of tariffs, China has already fully prepared, and will not hesitate to immediately make a fierce counter strike.”
The dueling trade threats rattled Wall Street on Friday, ending a volatile week with major indexes closing down more than 2 percent on the day. The dollar also fell, while safe havens such as the Japanese Yen and gold futures rose.
The week started with China imposing $3 billion of tariffs on U.S. fruits, nuts, wine and pork, and rapidly escalated to threats that could seriously curtail hundreds of billions of dollars in trade between the world’s two largest economies.
Published: by Radio NewsHub