Trump Threatens New Tariffs on Trading Partners
President Donald Trump has issued a warning to U.S. trading partners that unless they remove restrictions placed on American goods, they will face “more than Reciprocity by the U.S.A.”
“The United States is insisting that all countries that have placed artificial Trade Barriers and Tariffs on goods going into their country, remove those Barriers & Tariffs or be met with more than Reciprocity by the U.S.A. Trade must be fair and no longer a one way street!” Trump tweeted Sunday.
Trump has already annoyed major U.S. trading partners, including China, Canada, Mexico, the European Union and India, by imposing tariffs on steel, aluminum and other products from those countries.
On Friday, Trump threatened to impose a 20 percent tariff on vehicles assembled in the European Union and shipped to the United States, in retaliation for European tariffs on American imports.
That threat was in response to EU tariffs on billions of dollars’ worth of American goods — including jeans, bourbon and motorcycles, which in turn were in response to trump’s tariffs on steel and aluminum.
The U.S. is scheduled to start taxing more than $30 billion in Chinese imports in two weeks.
Like the EU, China has promised to retaliate immediately, putting the world’s two largest economies at odds.
U.S. Chamber of Commerce senior Vice President John Murphy was cited by the Associated Press as saying he estimates that $75 billion in U.S. products could be subjected to new foreign tariffs by the end of the first week of July.
Separately, a spokesman for China’s Commerce Ministry said, “The U.S. is abusing the tariff methods and starting trade wars all around the world.”
During his presidential campaign, Trump promised to apply tariffs because he said countries around the world had been exploiting the U.S.
