U.S.-China trade war rumblings update
Politics & Current Affairs
As we noted in our Access members’ newsletter on Friday (paywall), although neither China nor the U.S. have yet imposed the tariffs they have threatened, Beijing’s gremlins are already at work, imposing non-tariff barriers to American goods.
- “China’s major ports of entry have ramped up checks on fresh fruit imports from the United States, five Chinese industry sources said, which could delay shipments from U.S. growers already dealing with higher tariffs as Sino-U.S. trade ties worsen,” Reuters reported last week.
- American apples and logs will be subject to China’s stepped-up quarantine checks, according to a Reuters report published today.
- In recent years, countries that have felt an unofficial commercial squeeze from Beijing in retaliation for a decision or a perceived slight include:
- South Korea 2017 — canceled theme park projects and vandalized supermarkets.
- The Philippines 2012 — “heaps of rotting bananas” intended for China.
- Japan 2012 — street protests and boycotts of Japanese goods.
- Norway 2011 — rotting salmon “as China takes revenge for dissident’s Nobel Prize.”
More on U.S.-China trade talks and tensions:
- U.S. and China make scant progress in trade talks / WSJ (paywall)
“The U.S. and China asked one another to make sweeping concessions in trade talks, failing to bridge sharp divisions and raising the chances that each government will slap tariffs on tens of billions of dollars of the other country’s exports.”
- China softens tone on trade after U.S. leaves empty handed / Bloomberg
- China’s ZTE to U.S.: Let us buy American technology again / CNN
Previously in The China Project’s trade war coverage:
