The Trump administration has announced yet another major hike of existing and future tariffs on some $550 billion in Chinese goods, criticizing Beijing’s attempt to offset the losses as ‘unfair’ and ‘politically motivated.
Duties on $250 million worth of Chinese goods already taxed at 25% will increase to 30% starting on October 1, 2019.
The US president tweeted on Friday, enraged that Beijing dared to respond to his previous tariff jab. In addition, he said, $300 billion in imports set to be taxed at 10% starting on September 1, 2019 will be taxed at 15% instead.
This capitalist move jacks up the consumer pries in the USA, while salaries of the working class are being kept frozen? The bankrupt USA needs money and the idea that employment rates have gone up is another twist for the people’s mind.
The latest salvo in the raging US-China trade war ups the ante after Beijing applied duties of its own to $75 billion in American goods, sending US markets into a tailspin.
Saudi Arabia is now buying up farmland in the US southwest to cover the holes in the lost farmland budgets.
Chinese countermeasures envisage 5% to 10% duties on American farm products including beef, pork, and soybeans, a 25% duty on cars, and for the first time, a tax on US crude oil.
US stock market indexes fell precipitously on Friday, with the Dow Jones plummeting 700 points at one point amid Trump’s threats to cut off all trade with Beijing.
When he virtually ordered US companies to “immediately start looking for an alternative to China,” it inspired further market panic.
This basically means more cheap Latin labor on the horizon for the USA to compete with China as the largest cheap labor factory in the world.
Since the beginning of the conflict in March 2018, Trump has been playing the victim card, routinely labeling China a currency manipulator that steals US technologies.
And in between the futile trade talks, Trump blames China for the US opium epidemic that kills thousands of Americans with synthetic opioids.
US businesses are growing increasingly desperate over the stalemate, urging Trump to put the tit-for-tat tax war on hold and seek common ground with Xi.
The US tech industry is set to lose billions as Trump seems determined to cut off Chinese companies like Huawei from American markets, despite a temporary reprieve.
Meanwhile, US agriculture, already beset by catastrophic rainfall, flooding, and tornadoes over the past year, is staring at plummeting returns as China – one of its largest customers – looks further afield for farm products.
RT. com / ABC Flash Point News 2019.
Another way to suck out the money of the tax payers pockets?
Indeed, another scam in the making?