Trump sets tariffs on $50 billion in Chinese goods; Beijing strikes back

Agencies
June 16, 2018

Washington/Beijing, Jun 16:US President Donald Trump said he was pushing ahead with hefty tariffs on $50 billion of Chinese imports on Friday, and the smoldering trade war between the world’s two largest economies showed signs of igniting as Beijing immediately vowed to respond in kind.

Trump laid out a list of more than 800 strategically important imports from China that would be subject to a 25 percent tariff starting on July 6, including cars, the latest hardline stance on trade by a U.S. president who has already been wrangling with allies.

China’s Commerce Ministry said it would respond with tariffs “of the same scale and strength” and that any previous trade deals with Trump were “invalid.” The official Xinhua news agency said China would impose 25 percent tariffs on 659 U.S. products, ranging from soybeans and autos to seafood.

China’s retaliation list was increased more than six-fold from a version released in April, but the value was kept at $50 billion, as some high-value items such as commercial aircraft were deleted.

Shares of Boeing Co, the single largest U.S. exporter to China, closed down 1.3 percent after paring earlier losses. Caterpillar Inc, another big exporter to China, ended 2 percent lower.

Trump said in a statement that the United States would pursue additional tariffs if China retaliates.

Washington and Beijing appeared increasingly headed toward open trade conflict after several rounds of negotiations failed to resolve U.S. complaints over Chinese industrial policies, lack of market access in China and a $375 billion U.S. trade deficit.

“These tariffs are essential to preventing further unfair transfers of American technology and intellectual property to China, which will protect American jobs,” Trump said.

Analysts, however, did not expect the U.S. tariffs to inflict a major wound to China’s economy and said the trade dispute likely would continue to fester.

TVs SPARED, CHIPS ADDED

U.S. Customs and Border Protection will begin collecting tariffs on 818 product categories valued at $34 billion on July 6, the U.S. Trade Representative’s office said.

The list was slimmed down from a version unveiled in April, dropping Chinese flat-panel television sets, medical breathing devices and oxygen generators and air conditioning parts.

The tariffs will still target autos, including those imported by General Motors Co and Volvo, owned by China’s Geely Automobile Holdings, and electric cars.

And USTR added tariffs on another 284 product lines, valued at $16 billion, targeting semiconductors, a broad range of electronics and plastics that it said benefited from China’s industrial subsidy programs, including the “Made in China 2025” plan, aimed at making China more competitive in key technologies such as robotics and semiconductors.

Tariffs on these products will go into effect after a public comment period. A senior Trump administration official told reporters that companies will be able to apply for exclusions for Chinese imports they cannot source elsewhere.

Most semiconductor devices imported from China use chips produced in the United States, with low-level assembly and testing work done in China, prompting the Semiconductor Industry Association to call the new tariff list “counterproductive.”

While many business groups and lawmakers urged the two governments to negotiate instead, there was little sign talks would resume soon.

Trump’s tariffs did gain some support from an unlikely source, U.S. Senate Democratic leader Charles Schumer, who called them “right on target.”

“China is our real trade enemy, and their theft of intellectual property and their refusal to let our companies compete fairly threatens millions of future American jobs,” Schumer said in a statement.

The USTR official said the tariffs were aimed at changing China’s behavior on its technology transfer policies and massive subsidies to develop high-tech industries. The United States now dominates those industries, but Chinese government support could make it difficult for U.S. companies to compete.

Washington has completed a second list of possible tariffs on another $100 billion in Chinese goods, in the expectation that China will respond to the initial U.S. tariff list in kind, sources told Reuters.

U.S. soybean futures plunged 1.5 percent to a one-year low on concerns that an escalating trade fight with China will threaten shipments to the biggest buyer of the oilseed, traders said.

 Beijing and Washington had held three rounds of high-level talks since early May but failed to reach a compromise. Trump was unmoved by a Chinese offer to buy an additional $70 billion worth of U.S. farm and energy products and other goods, according to people familiar with the matter.Analysts at Capital Economics said the impact of the tariffs on China’s economy would be small. Even if the U.S. duties reach the full $150 billion, they estimated it would shave well under a half-percentage point off China’s annual growth rate, which could be offset by fiscal and monetary policy actions.

“Neither side will be brought to its knees – which is one reason to think the trade dispute could drag on,” Capital Economics said. “For China’s part, its leaders will be determined not to be seen to back down to foreign pressure.”

Although shares of some tariff-sensitive companies fell on Wall Street, the stock market overall fell only modestly.

“With the announcement of the tariffs, there’s a real risk that we can see a continued increased escalation,” said Robin Anderson, senior economist at Principal Global Investors in Des Moines, Iowa. But he said that underlying strong economic fundamentals in the United States would dampen the market impact.

Trump has also triggered a trade fight with Canada, Mexico and the European Union over steel and aluminum and has threatened to impose duties on European cars.

While China in recent months made incremental market-opening reforms in industries that critics in the foreign business community say were already planned, it has not been inclined to yield on its core industrial policies.

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Agencies
June 7,2020

Boston, Jun 7: Dozens of scientists doing research funded by Mark Zuckerberg say Facebook should not be letting President Donald Trump use of the social media platform to spread both misinformation and incendiary statements.

The researchers, including 60 professors at leading US research institutions, wrote a letter to the Facebook CEO on Saturday asking that he consider stricter policies on misinformation and incendiary language that harms people," especially during the current turmoil over racial injustice.

The letter calls the spread of deliberate misinformation and divisive language the researchers' goal of using technology to prevent and eradicate disease, improving childhood education and reform the criminal justice system.

The researchers' mission "is antithetical to some of the stances that Facebook has been taking, so we're encouraging them to be more on the side of truth and on the right side of history as we've said in the letter, said Debora Marks of Harvard Medical School, one of three professors who organized the letter.

The other organisers are Martin Kampmann of the University of California-San Francisco and Jason Shepherd of the University of Utah.

All have grants from a Chan Zuckerberg Initiative program working to prevent, cure and treat neurodegenerative disorders including Alzheimer's and Parkinson's disease. The initiative is run by Zuckerberg and his wife, Priscilla Chan.

They said the letter had more than 160 signatories. Shepherd said about 10% are employees of Chan Zuckerberg foundations.

The letter objects specifically to Zuckerberg's decision not to at least flag as a violation of Facebook's community standards Trump's post that stated when the looting starts, the shooting starts after unrest in Minneapolis over the videotaped killing of George Floyd, a black man, by a white police officer.

The letter's authors called the post a clear statement of inciting violence.

Twitter had both flagged and demoted a Trump tweet using the same language.

The Associated Press emailed the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative press office for comment. It did not immediately respond.

Some Facebook employees have publicly objected to Zuckerberg's refusal to take down or label misleading or incendiary posts by Trump or other politicians. But Zuckerberg who controls a majority of voting shares in the company has so far refused.

On Friday, Zuckerberg said in a post that he would review potential options for handling violating or partially-violating content aside from the binary leave-it-up or take-it-down decisions I know many of you think we should have labeled the President's posts in some way last week, he wrote.

"Our current policy is that if content is actually inciting violence, then the right mitigation is to take that content down not let people continue seeing it behind a flag. There is no exception to this policy for politicians or newsworthiness.

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News Network
July 25,2020

New Delhi, Jul 25: India reported a spike of 48,916 coronavirus cases on Saturday, according to the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare.

The total COVID-19 positive cases stand at 13,36,861 including 4,56,071 active cases, 8,49,431 cured/discharged/migrated. With 757 deaths in the last 24 hours, the cumulative toll reached 31,358.

Maharashtra has reported 3,57,117 coronavirus cases, the highest among states and Union Territories in the country.

A total of 1,99,749 cases have been reported from Tamil Nadu till now, while Delhi has recorded a total of 1,28,389 coronavirus cases.

According to the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), 4,20,898 samples were tested for coronavirus on Friday and overall 1,58,49,068 samples have been tested so far.

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News Network
June 24,2020

Islamabad, Jun 24: A plane crash which killed 97 people in Pakistan last month was because of human error by the pilot and air traffic control, according to an initial report into the disaster released Wednesday.

The Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) plane came down among houses on May 22 after both engines failed as it approached Karachi airport, killing all but two people on board.

"The pilot as well as the controller didn't follow the standard rules," the country's aviation minister Ghulam Sarwar Khan said, announcing the findings in parliament.

He said the pilots had been discussing the coronavirus pandemic as they attempted to land the Airbus A320.

"The pilot and co-pilot were not focused and throughout the conversation was about coronavirus," Khan said.

The Pakistani investigation team, which included officials from the French government and the aviation industry, analysed data and voice recorders.

The minister said the plane was "100 percent fit for flying, there was no technical fault".

The county's deadliest aviation accident in eight years came days after domestic commercial flights resumed following a two-month coronavirus lockdown.

Many passengers were on their way to spend the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Fitr with loved ones.

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