Trump hits China with more tariffs, says Xi moving too slow on trade

International News

US President Donald Trump said he plans to impose a 10 per cent tariff on $300 billion of Chinese imports from September 1 and could raise tariffs further if China's President Xi Jinping fails to move more quickly to strike a trade deal.
The announcement on Thursday extends Trump's trade tariffs to nearly all China's imports into the United States and marks an abrupt end to a temporary truce in a trade war that has disrupted global supply chains and roiled financial markets.
"I think President Xi ... wants to make a deal, but frankly, he's not going fast enough," Trump said.
Trump made the announcement in a series of Twitter posts after his top trade negotiators briefed him on a lack of progress in US-China talks in Shanghai this week.
Trump later said if trade negotiations fail to progress he could raise tariffs further - even beyond the 25 per cent levy he has already imposed on $250 billion of imports from China.
The news hit US financial markets hard.
Oil prices plummeted 7 per cent, with Brent crude registering the biggest daily percentage drop since February 2016. The benchmark S&P 500, which had been in solidly positive territory on Thursday afternoon, closed down 0.9 per cent. Benchmark US Treasury yields also fell.

 Retail associations predicted a spike in consumer prices. Target Corp tumbled 4.2 per cent, Macy's Inc fell 6 per cent and Nordstrom Inc was down 6.2 per cent.Asked about the impact on financial markets, Trump told reporters: "I'm not concerned about that at all."...Read More

US threat to pull China's WTO developing nation tag will fail: State media

International News

A US threat to pull recognition of China's "developing nation" status at the World Trade Organisation is a pressure tactic ahead of this week's trade talks and is bound to fail, a commentary in state media said Monday.
The reaction followed a memo issued on Friday by President Donald Trump to US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer.
It said the WTO, which operates a global system of trade rules and settles disputes, uses "an outdated dichotomy between developed and developing countries that has allowed some WTO members to gain unfair advantages." Without "substantial progress" to reform WTO rules within 90 days, Washington will no longer treat as a developing country any WTO member "improperly declaring itself a developing country and inappropriately seeking the benefit of flexibilities in WTO rules and negotiations," said the statement, which focused mostly on China.
The memo came ahead of meetings in Shanghai on Tuesday and Wednesday between US and Chinese negotiators aiming to resolve a trade dispute that has led to tariffs on more than $360 billion worth of two-way trade involving the world's two largest economies.
Washington "obviously timed the memo to serve as a new bargaining chip" in the trade talks, the commentary from state-run Xinhua news agency said of the WTO threat.

 "But the tactic of imposing pressure is nothing new to China and has never worked," it said.Xinhua added that the US government's "latest hegemonic attempt" to coerce the WTO "is destined to hit a wall of opposition." Developing country status in the WTO allows governments longer timelines for implementing free trade commitments, as well as the ability to protect some domestic industry and maintain subsidies...Read More