U. S. President Donald Trump has directed aides to proceed with tariffs on about another $200 billion of Chinese goods, despite Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin’s attempts to restart trade talks with China, a source familiar with the matter said on Friday.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) — U. S. President Donald Trump has directed aides to proceed with tariffs on about another $200 billion of Chinese goods, despite Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin’s attempts to restart trade talks with China, a source familiar with the matter said on Friday.
The timing for activating the additional tariffs was unclear.
The green light for the tariffs, first reported by Bloomberg, initially dragged U. S. stocks lower, fueled drops in the Chinese yuan in offshore trading CNH=EBS and gains in the dollar index. DXY.
Trump, who had already imposed 25 percent tariffs on $50 billion of Chinese goods, said a week ago that he would be adding tariffs on another $200 billion in goods and had tariffs on another $267 billion in Chinese imports “ready to go on short notice if I want.”
The Trump administration has demanded that China cut its $375 billion trade surplus with the United States, end policies aimed at acquiring U. S. technologies and intellectual property and roll back high-tech industrial subsidies.
The White House said in a statement that Trump had been clear that he and his administration would continue to take action to address China’s trade practices and encouraged Beijing to address U.
