President Donald Trump on Thursday announced that the US will impose an additional 10 per cent tariff on $300 billion in Chinese imports, as he accused China of not being serious in arriving at the trade deal and failing to keep its promise to buy more American agricultural products.
In a series of tweet, Trump said the new tariff, in addition to the 25 per cent on goods worth $250 billion that was previously in place, would come into effect from September 1.
The announcement came a day after US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin returned from Shanghai after two days of latest round of trade negotiations with China.
“Our representatives have just returned from China where they had constructive talks having to do with a future trade deal,” Trump tweeted.
“We thought we had a deal with China three months ago, but sadly, China decided to re-negotiate the deal prior to signing. More recently, China agreed to buy agricultural product from the US in large quantities, but did not do so,” Trump said.
“Additionally, my friend President Xi said that he would stop the sale of Fentanyl to the United States — this never happened, and many Americans continue to die!” said the president.
“Trade talks are continuing, and during the talks the US will start, on September 1st, putting a small additional tariff of 10 percent on the remaining 300 billion dollars of goods and products coming from China into our country,” Trump tweeted.
“This does not include the 250 billion dollars already tariffed at 25 per cent. We look forward to continuing our positive dialogue with China on a comprehensive trade deal, and feel that the future between our two countries will be a very bright one!” said the US President.
Since the commencement of trade war last year China and US have so far hit each other with punitive tariffs covering more than $360 billion in two-way trade.
Trump kicked off the trade war demanding China to reduce massive trade deficit which last year climbed to over $539 billion. He is also insisting on China to workout verifiable measures for protection of intellectual property rights (IPR) technology transfer and more access to American goods to Chinese markets.