Sino US trade frictions escalated again.
In the early morning of August 2, the U.S. trade representative's office officially issued a statement that it would consider raising the tax rate on $200 billion of Chinese goods under 301 items from 10% to 25%. The trade war between China and the United States has begun to enter a tense situation. How will China fight back?
A spokesman for the Ministry of Commerce said in a statement on August 2 that the US side had two actions in the past two days. On the one hand, it made a statement that it would raise the tax rate on China's 200 billion US dollar products exported to the us from 10% to 25%. On the other hand, it would blow around and resume negotiations with China. The U.S. will not play any role in China by playing both soft and hard.
According to the analysis, trump believes that the previous 10% tariff is not enough to force China to compromise and give up the retaliatory tariff on the United States, while expanding the scope of Taxation will inevitably raise the cost of domestic consumer goods, so he chooses to unilaterally raise the tariff rate again. The new tax list includes a large number of intermediate goods and consumer goods, which is bound to raise prices in the United States.
A spokesman for the Ministry of Commerce said that China is fully prepared for the threat of the US upgrading its trade war and will have to make counter-measures to safeguard national dignity and people's interests, free trade and multilateral system, and common interests of all countries in the world. China has always advocated resolving differences through dialogue, but only if we treat each other equally and keep our promises.
The US side promotes the trade war to upgrade again
On July 10, the United States announced plans to impose tariffs on $200 billion of Chinese goods, and released a nearly 200 page list of more than 6000 kinds of goods, including fruits and vegetables, handbags, refrigerators, raincoats and baseball gloves.
A spokesman for the Ministry of Commerce said that the U.S. side not only ignored the interests of the world, but also the interests of ordinary American farmers, entrepreneurs and consumers, and played a two handed strategy of both hard and soft on China, which would not have any effect on China, but also disappointed the countries and regions opposed to trade war in the world.
Tu Xinquan, President of the China WTO Research Institute of the University of foreign economic relations and trade, said in an interview with the 21st century economic report that under the background of the US tariff increase, there is no equal negotiation condition and atmosphere. At present, the real intention of the US side is not in the peace talks, but to suppress China to the limit, destroy China's determination and will to resist, so as to gain more benefits in the final negotiations.
Tu Xinquan said that the United States unilaterally raised the tariff rate, mainly because trump thought that the previous 10% tariff was insufficient to make China compromise. Chinese goods are of high quality and low price, and consumers have certain rigid demand for them, and the price increase space within 10% can be borne. At the same time, the cost of US tariff is shared by Chinese enterprises and US importers.
In addition, the recent continuous devaluation of the RMB has largely offset the tariff effect of the United States, which led trump to accuse China of manipulating the RMB exchange rate of "falling like a stone".
Yu miaojie, vice president of the National Development Research Institute of Peking University, believes Trump's allegations are totally untenable and that the recent devaluation of the RMB is a market behavior.
He believes that the increase in US tax rates is more to reduce the impact on the necessary consumer goods in the United States. On July 24, the U.S. side said it planned to raise the tariff imposed on China to US $500 billion, but this is an "unbelievable" threat, because it covers almost all China's exports to the United States, including a large number of consumer goods. Another purpose of the tariff increase is to increase its threat effect and force China to abandon its retaliatory tariff on the United States.
The trump administration last month began to impose a 25% tariff on Chinese imports worth $34 billion, and China immediately countered with the same scale and strength. In the coming weeks, the two sides could impose tariffs on an additional $16 billion of goods.
Tu Xinquan pointed out that at present, not only China cannot understand Trump's policy, but also think tanks and other institutions in the United States are very confused, unable to guess the real intention of Trump's move. Trump believes that the current strong economic recovery in the United States has given him the impetus to upgrade the trade war. However, trump, whose confidence has exploded, did not make a rational estimate of the medium and long-term impact of the comprehensive upgrading of the Sino US trade war.
China will make Counter-measures
Tu Xinquan said that compared with the previous 10% tariff, the additional 25% tariff is bound to have a great impact on China's exports to the United States. Although 25% of the tariff is not prohibitive, it will inevitably reduce the market share of Chinese enterprises in the United States and bring about a significant decline in exports to the United States.
Even if the United States imposes a 25% tariff on all Chinese exports, China will be able to withstand the impact, according to a report released recently by the center for China and world economic research at Tsinghua University.
According to the report, at present, the average tariff of the products exported by the United States to China is about 3%. If the United States raises the tariff to 25%, the export volume of China to the United States will drop by 11%, or 50 billion US dollars, which will drag down the growth rate of China's GDP by 0.4 percentage points. If China imposes the same retaliatory tariff, the direct impact on China's net exports will be reduced to US $40 billion, and the drag on China's GDP growth will be reduced from 0.4% of the non retaliatory tariff to 0.34%.
Tu Xinquan said that the U.S. imposition of tariffs is an act of harming others and not benefiting ourselves, and the specific impact on the two countries varies according to different industries. In terms of amount, middle and high-end products and intermediate products are still the focus of the new list.
Among these 6031 commodities, the first three items with the largest amount are respectively program-controlled receiving and exchange, printed circuit components and processor components, with the amount reaching 23 billion, 11.6 billion and 4.5 billion (US dollars, the same below).
The top 20 companies also include ADP machine parts (3.15 billion), static converter (2.37 billion), insulated conductor (1.48 billion), wheel parts (2.28 billion), brake system and servo brake (1.64 billion), as well as metal furniture (3.87 billion), electric lamps and lighting appliances (1.94 billion), vacuum cleaner (1.81 billion) and other end products.
Tu Xinquan said that the new U.S. list is still focused on intermediate products in an attempt to reduce the impact on individual consumers, but such a large-scale product tax will inevitably raise the cost of consumer goods, and the rising cost of intermediate products will inevitably be transmitted to the downstream end products.
Yu pointed out that the new list includes capital goods, intermediate products and consumer goods. Among them, capital goods China does not have a comparative advantage and its share is not high; a large number of intermediate products will inevitably raise the production cost of downstream enterprises in the United States; before that, consumer goods accounted for less than 1% of the 50 billion list, but nearly 40% of the new list.
The above tariff measures will not take effect until after the public consultation period. The US side said in a statement that in view of the possible increase of the additional tax rate to 25%, the deadline for written consultation was extended from August 30 to September 5, and the deadline for hearing application was extended to August 13.
He Weiwen, former economic and Commercial Counsellor of China's Consulate General in San Francisco and New York, told 21st century economic news that trump is likely to pursue tariffs despite domestic opposition. When the 50 billion yuan tariff was last imposed, a large number of objections were received. However, trump ignored these domestic voices and only went through a legal procedure according to the regulations.
With regard to the threat of the US upgrading its trade war, the Ministry of Commerce said that China is fully prepared and will have to make counter-measures to safeguard national dignity and people's interests, free trade and multilateral system, and common interests of all countries in the world.
Yu miaojie said that the tariff measures have no basis at all. Many Chinese goods that the United States imposes tariffs on are not produced in the United States at all, let alone lead to the decline of the export capacity of the United States.
Tu Xinquan believes that on the basis of three rounds of trade negotiations between China and the United States and preliminary results, the United States has unilaterally announced that it will impose tariffs on China, and there is little change between the plan and the negotiations, which reflects the lack of basic sincerity of the trump government for negotiations and consultations, and China should be prepared for a long-term war.
A spokesman for the Ministry of Commerce said that China has always advocated resolving differences through dialogue, but only if it treats each other equally and keeps its promise. "China has always believed that bad things can turn into good things, challenges can turn into opportunities, and we are confident in achieving the goal of high-quality economic development. '