China vows retaliatory tariffs on U.S. goods

Foreign ministry charges the United States “has repeatedly betrayed the consensus reached by negotiations and accelerated the trade war unilaterally again.”    China on Friday vowed to retaliate in response to any U.S. decision to impose tariffs against $200 billion worth of annual imports from China, after the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative on Wednesday said President Donald Trump asked the agency to consider whether to raise tariffs pegged for those products from 10 percent to 25 percent.
   Citing a Chinese Finance Ministry statement, the South China Morning Post on Friday reported that China would impose tariffs ranging from 5 percent to 25 percent on $60 billion worth of U.S. products, should the United States follow through on its threats against the $200 billion in Chinese products. China has announced plans to impose tariffs against $50 billion in annual U.S. exports, some of which are already being implemented.
   If China ends up following through on its threat, that would leave the country with about $20 billion more of U.S. goods in annual export value to retaliate against, as the United States exported only about $130 billion worth of goods to China in 2017. China exported about $505 billion worth of goods to the United States last year.
   “The U.S. has repeatedly betrayed the consensus reached by negotiations and accelerated the trade war unilaterally again,” the South China Morning Post reported the finance ministry as saying. “It has seriously violated the principles of the World Trade Organization.”
   The USTR-led interagency Section 301 Committee is scheduled to hold a hearing to examine potential Section 301 tariffs on $200 billion worth of goods Aug. 20-23 at the International Trade Commission in Washington, D.C.
   If the United States follows through in imposing tariffs across the $200 billion worth of goods, it could add up to tariffs imposed on a total of $250 billion worth of Chinese goods in annual import value. The Trump administration is considering whether to impose 25 percent tariffs against $16 billion worth of Chinese goods, after levying 25 percent tariffs across $34 billion worth of Chinese goods starting July 6.