On February 4th, in response to President Trump imposing 10% tariffs on all Chinese imports, China announced a number of retaliatory tariff and non-tariff actions.
Retaliatory tariff actions:
China announced a 15% tariff on coal and liquified natural gas imports from the United States. China also threatened to impose a 10% tariff on US crude oil, agricultural machinery, pickup trucks, and large-engine cars. Those tariffs are anticipated to go into effect on February 10th.
Retaliatory non-tariff actions:
China announced new export controls on several dozen metal products and related technologies including tungsten (a mineral used in a number of industrial and defense applications) as well as tellurium, which is used to make solar cells.
China also added biotech company Illumina and the apparel company PVH Group, which owns the Calvin Klein and Tommy Hilfiger labels, to China’s unreliable entities list, saying these companies “violated normal market trading principles.” A Chinese Ministry of Commerce spokesperson stated that the companies engaged in “discriminatory measures against Chinese enterprises,” but failed to provide further details. Companies on the unreliable entities list can be subject to fines and other sanctions including a revocation of work permits for non-Chinese staff.
Separately, China’s State Administration for Market Regulation issued a statement that Google is under investigation for suspected violation of China’s anti-monopoly law. For a number of years Google services have been blocked in China, including the company’s Gmail email services, Chrome browser and search engine.
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