The Trump administration has been threatening trade tariffs on China, and this morning it became a reality.
WASHINGTON, DC (CBSNewYork) – The Trump administration has been threatening for months to impose trade tariffs on China, and this morning it became a reality – with an immediate response on American goods in return.
“The era of global freeloading and taking advantage of the United States is over, it’s just over,” said President Donald Trump when promoting his commerce policy with the Asian economic giant.
Trump spoke with journalists last week, saying U. S. tariffs on an additional $16 billion worth of Chinese goods are also set to take effect in two weeks, reports CBS2’s Reena Roy.
He argues this is necessary to pressure china into stopping its pattern of unfair trade practices and theft of American intellectual property.
“We are going to make trade fair and reciprocal,” he said. “Reciprocal, you know what that is. They do it to us, we do it to them. We are placing very big tariffs on some of these countries because they have tariffs on us.”
In a statement, China’s commerce ministry announced plans to impose their own measures.
“The Chinese side promised not to fight the first shot, but in order to defend the core interests of the country and the interests of the people, they had to be forced to make the necessary counterattacks,” it read, but no details were provided.
Previously officials in Beijing released a target list of American goods including soybeans electric cars and whiskey.
Meanwhile the U. S. tariffs hit more than 800 Chinese items, including industrial machinery, medical devices and auto parts.
American manufacturing companies that supply carmakers like Ford and General Motors now face a 25 percent increase on imported parts from China.
