Beijing (AFP) – China has said it has received overtures from the United States for talks on tariffs — but warned it will need concessions as proof of “sincerity” before any negotiations can take place. The world’s two largest economies are locked in a tit-for-tat tariff war that threatens hundreds of billions in trade and has roiled global markets and supply chains.
AFP looks at how the trade war between China and the United States is playing out:
– What steps have the two sides taken so far?
The United States has raised tariffs on Chinese imports to 145 percent, with cumulative duties on some goods reaching a staggering 245 percent. As well as the blanket levies, China is also under sector-specific tariffs on steel, aluminium, and car imports. Sales of Chinese goods to the US last year totalled more than $500 billion — 16.4 percent of the country’s exports, according to Beijing’s customs data.
China has vowed to fight the measures “to the end” and has unveiled reciprocal tariffs of up to 125 percent on imports of American goods, which totalled $143.5 billion last year, according to Washington. Beijing has filed complaints with the World Trade Organization (WTO), citing “bullying” tactics by the Trump administration. And it has gone after American companies, scrapping orders for Boeing planes, probing Google for “anti-monopoly” violations, and adding US fashion group PVH Corp.– which owns Tommy Hilfiger and Calvin Klein — and biotech giant Illumina to a list of “unreliable entities”. Beijing has also restricted exports of rare earth elements — critical in the manufacturing of everything from semiconductors to medical technology and consumer electronics.
– What’s been the impact so far?
Beijing has long drawn Trump’s ire with a trade surplus with the United States that reached $295.4 billion last year, according to the US Commerce Department’s Bureau of Economic Analysis. Chinese leaders have been reluctant to disrupt the status quo. But an intensified trade war will likely mean China cannot peg its hopes for strong economic growth this year on its exports, which reached record highs in 2024. US duties further threaten to harm China’s fragile post-Covid economic recovery as it struggles with a debt crisis in the property sector and persistently low consumption.
The tariff war is already having an impact in the United States, with uncertainty triggering a manufacturing slump last month and officials blaming it for an unexpected slump in GDP in the first three months of the year. “The cost on the US economy and livelihood is beginning to surface,” Mei Xinyu, an economist at the state-affiliated Chinese Academy of International Trade and Economic Cooperation, told AFP. “They are starting to truly feel the cost and impact of pursuing trade hegemony with China,” he said. The head of the WTO said in April that the US-China tariff war could cut trade in goods between the two countries by 80 percent. Analysts expect the levies to take a significant chunk out of China’s GDP, which Beijing’s leadership hope will grow five percent this year. Likely to be hit hardest are China’s top exports to the United States — everything from electronics and machinery to textiles and clothing, according to the Peterson Institute of International Economics. And because of the crucial role Chinese goods play in supplying US firms, the tariffs may also hurt American manufacturers and consumers, analysts have warned.
– Are talks likely?
US President Donald Trump has repeatedly claimed that China has reached out for talks on the tariffs. But Friday’s statement by Beijing suggested it was Washington that’s been reaching out. While China’s commerce ministry said it was “evaluating” the offer, it warned it would need concessions from Washington — namely the lifting of tariffs — before talks could go ahead. “Tariffs cannot be used as a bargaining chip to pressure China. China cannot make any concessions on the tariff issue,” Wang Wen, Dean of Chongyang Institute for Financial Studies at Renmin University of China, told AFP.
Analysts in China broadly agreed that pressure on the US economy was driving Washington’s call for talks. “The fact that the US is repeatedly saying it is talking with China proves that the US itself has taken a big hit from the trade war,” Wang Yiwei, director of the Institute of International Affairs at Beijing’s Renmin University of China, said. “China is certainly willing (to negotiate), and so is evaluating and observing the US side’s sincerity — is it all just bluff and bluster…or is it actually something real that could yield plans for serious talks?”
© 2024 AFP
