Trump Doubles Tariffs on $200 Billion of Chinese Goods Amid Trade Talks

President Trump's threatened 25 percent tariff on $200 billion worth of Chinese exports took effect at 12:01 a.m. Friday, halfway through high-level trade talks in Washington, D.C., led by Chinese Vice Premier Liu He. The tariffs, up from 10 percent, will be in force for shipments leaving China on Friday, leaving negotiators a little time to hammer out an agreement. Both sides agreed the trade talks will continue Friday. China's Commerce Ministry said it "deeply regrets" Trump's decision and Beijing "will have to take necessary countermeasures." Economists say Trump's tariffs and the retaliatory tariffs from China are hurting both countries.

U.S. President Donald Trump, the morning after levying fresh tariffs on China, caused confusion among traders by tweeting there is “no need to rush" on China trade -- then deleting that and other tweets moments later.

An earlier tweet was deleted and reposted with minor changes.

S&P 500 futures have been steadily pulling back since the tweet was first published, and are trading near the day’s low.

Tariffs, he said, would make the U.S. "MUCH STRONGER, not weaker. Just sit back and watch!"

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment on why the tweets were edited.

China has said it will be forced to retaliate, though hasn’t yet specified how or when it will do so.

Discussions between President Xi Jinping’s top trade envoy and his U.S. counterparts in Washington made little progress on Thursday, with the mood around them downbeat, according to people familiar with the talks. The negotiations were due to resume later Friday morning Washington time.

Trump claimed Friday that money received from tariffs would be used to purchase agricultural products from U.S. farmers to ship to other countries for food aid. Trump also said waivers on some products would be granted "or go to new source," though he didn’t elaborate.

"In the meantime we will continue to negotiate with China in the hopes that they do not again try to redo deal!"

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[Jimusmc]

Serious question:
Is Ivanka's fashion line exempt from the tariffs?

[erickrcisneros]

Remember why the United States imposed tariffs in the first place.

[erickrcisneros]

Industrial espionage has been going on for centuries, but experts agree China’s espionage campaign is on a different scale from anything we’ve seen in history.

It has been going on at least since the 1990s and there is no sign it is letting up. Targets include an incredibly broad range of US companies, embracing civilian as well as military technology, with a special focus on the telecom and Internet sector. In 2009, National Security Agency Director General Keith Alexander called Chinese IP theft “the greatest transfer of wealth in history.” He put the value of cyber-theft of US trade secrets and intellectual property (IP) at a stunning $250 billion a year and called it “our future disappearing in front of us.”

Rather than describe general trends (such as Chinese military officers whose job consists of hacking American companies from 9 to 5 daily, 5 days a week), we thought it would be more evocative to describe ten of the most flagrant cases of IP theft. They range across many industries. What they have in common is that these cases involve gains for Chinese companies—even when the industrial spies are caught and imprisoned. For the US victim companies, they involve loss of markets, loss of jobs, and even loss of life.

[erickrcisneros]

On February 28, 2007, a Motorola engineer named Hanjuan Jin was stopped by customs agents at O’Hare Airport. They searched her and found she had $30, 000 in cash, a carry-on bag full of Motorola documents marked “confidential and proprietary, ” and a one-way ticket for Beijing. She was arrested.

Jin was a successful engineer working on Motorola’s cellular technology at a time when Motorola was one of the world’s top wireless companies (and a substantial supplier to the Pentagon). Investigations revealed that after eight years with Motorola, Jin had in 2006 taken medical leave, gone to China, and in violation of the terms of her Motorola employment, pursued a job with Sun Kaisens, a Chinese telecom company that does work for the Chinese military. In 2007, she returned to Chicago and resumed work briefly for Motorola, during which time she was seen leaving the office with shopping bags full of documents in the evenings. Born in China, Jin had gone to the US where she received a master’s degree in physics from Notre Dame, and obtained US citizenship.

In 2012, she was sentenced to four years in prison and a fine of $20, 000. At the trial, the judge said: “The most important thing this country can do is protect its trade secrets.”

[monstersince]

the world economy is entering a depression

[stevengrainger]

us English admire trump for a reason and he's making brilliant progress