US Trade Representative finally announced the tariffs on USD 200B of Chinese imports, effective September 24, 2018. The initial tariff rate is 10%. Staring January 1, 2019, the tariff rate will be increased to 25%. The list of products covers 5745 lines of the original 6031 lines proposed back in July 10. 297 lines were fully or partially removed from the list. Products include consumer electronics, certain chemical inputs for manufactured goods, textiles and agriculture; certain health and safety products such as bicycle helmets, and child safety furniture such as car seats and playpens.
The tariffs were part of the follow-up actions on Section 301 investigations. China’s unfair trade practices were repeated in the statement. These include, forced technology transfer, depriving UA companies to set market based terms in negotiations, unfairly facilitating systematic investment in acquisition of US technology companies, and cyber intrusions to US commercial computer networks for valuable business information.
Trump warned in a statement that new round of tariffs on around USD 267B of additional imports will be pursued if China retaliates. He added that “we have been very clear about the type of changes that need to be made, and we have given China every opportunity to treat us more fairly.” “But, so far, China has been unwilling to change its practices.”
