Retaliation will be severe to President Trump’s announcement Monday that Chinese imports could soon face $200 billion in new tariffs, China’s official media has warned.
Tuesday’s lead editorial in China Daily, the state-run English-language newspaper, tackles the tariff issue and looming trade war pitting goods against intellectual property theft by declaring in a headline: “Trump’s trade prejudice self-harming the US.”
Mr. Trump’s Monday announcement, to set tariffs at a 10 percent rate, signals the latest round of tit-for-tat measures in an escalating battle over the trade imbalance between the two countries. Last week Washington confirmed it would hit $50 billion worth of Chinese goods with tariffs, with Beijing pledging to retaliate on $50 billion worth of U.S. goods.
In a statement announcing the new action, Mr. Trump said: “China apparently has no intention of changing its unfair practices related to the acquisition of American intellectual property and technology. Rather than altering those practices, it is now threatening United States companies, workers, and farmers who have done nothing wrong.”
Early Tuesday China’s Commerce Ministry called the tariff threat an “act of extreme pressure and blackmail” which “deviates from the consensus reached by both parties after many negotiations, and is a disappointment to the international community.”
According to the Associated Press, Chinese officials added, “if the U.S. becomes irrational and issues this list, China will have no choice but to adopt strong countermeasures of the same amount and quality.”
Tuesday’s China Daily editorial questions Mr. Trump’s rationale for the tariffs.
“Managing the largest economy in the world,” its authors state, “the current U.S. administration tends to attribute all the successes to its own merits while accusing others of being the cause of all the United States’ problems. China, of course, has for a long time been the favorite whipping boy of the US in this respect, and U.S. President Donald Trump has enthusiastically embraced this meme.”
It then claims that Mr. Trump’s presidential campaign trade rhetoric — which called China responsible for “the greatest theft in the history of the world” as it was “raping” the U.S. — had nothing to do with the “reality of the two countries’ trade relations” and that the U.S. was failing to negotiate fairly by imposing a second round of tariffs.
The editorial concludes by addressing the broader U.S. economy.
“Those U.S. companies and workers that feel the brunt of China’s retaliation should pass the word to Washington, that despite the pronounced aim of the Trump administration being to protect domestic industries and workers, the injuries that will be done them will be because of its actions.”
• Dan Boylan can be reached at dboylan@washingtontimes.com.
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