China is fighting President Trump’s controversial tariffs with its own on 128 U.S. exports, according to the Chinese commerce ministry.
Wine, dried fruit and nuts, fresh fruit, steel pipes, ginseng, and modified ethanol would be subject to a 15 percent tariff, while recycled aluminium goods and U.S. pork could see as much as 25 percent.
The new tariffs target $3 billion in U.S. goods, around 2 percent of the $172 billion in U.S. exports China is projected to receive this year.
Trump ordered tariffs on about $50 billion in imports from China Thursday, calling it “the first of many” trade moves.
The president’s decision came after a seven-month investigation into China’s theft of U.S. intellectual property, estimated to involve hundreds of billions of dollars.
“We have a tremendous intellectual property theft problem,” Trump said. “It’s going to make us a much stronger, much richer nation.”
The White House earlier this month announced global steel and aluminum tariffs, which also affected China.
“China’s not afraid of and will not recoil from a trade war,” said the Chinese embassy in Washington Thursday.
Trump has been critical of the trade deficit with China since the early days of his campaign.
However, the president has also praised Chinese president Xi Jinping’s cooperation with America on rogue regime North Korea.
“They are helping us a lot in North Korea,” he said. “But we have a trade deficit … there are many different ways of looking at it, but no matter which way you look at it, it is the largest trade deficit of any country in the history of the world.”
Critics of the president’s tariffs say they affect U.S. customers and could start a global trade war, but the White House said they will have only “minimal effects” on American consumers.
“Administrations before us and this administration has tried very, very hard to work with the Chinese,” said White House trade adviser Peter Navarro. “Talk is not cheap. It has been very expensive to the American people.”
“In terms of the broader calculus of the harm that is done by what is the theft … of intellectual property is almost incalculable,” a senior White House official said.