curbs

Beijing says it will not back down in the face of threats, urging the US to resolve differences through negotiations.

China has called United States President Donald Trump’s new tariffs on Chinese goods hypocritical as it defended its curbs on exports of rare earth elements and equipment, while stopping short of imposing additional duties on US imports.

In a lengthy statement on Sunday, China’s Ministry of Commerce said its export controls on rare earths, which Trump had labelled “surprising” and “very hostile”, were introduced in response to a series of US measures since their trade talks held in Madrid, Spain, last month.

“China’s stance is consistent,” the ministry said in a statement posted online. “We do not want a tariff war but we are not afraid of one.”

Trump on Friday retaliated to the Chinese curbs on rare earth exports by announcing a 100 percent tariff on Chinese exports to the US and new export controls on critical software, effective from November 1.

Beijing cited Washington’s decision to blacklist Chinese firms and impose port fees on China-linked ships as examples of what it called “provocative and damaging” actions, calling Trump’s tariff threat a “typical example of double standards”.

“These actions have severely harmed China’s interests and undermined the atmosphere for bilateral economic and trade talks. China firmly opposes them,” the ministry said.

Unlike earlier rounds of tit-for-tat tariffs, China has not yet announced any countermeasures.

Rare earths have been a major sticking point in recent trade negotiations between the two superpowers. They are critical to manufacturing everything from smartphones and electric vehicles to military hardware and renewable energy technology.

China dominates the global production and processing of these materials. On Thursday, it announced new controls on the export of technologies used for the mining and processing of critical minerals.

The renewed trade tensions between the world’s two largest economies also risk derailing a potential summit between Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in South Korea later this month. It would have been their first face-to-face encounter since Trump returned to power in January.

The dispute has also rattled global markets, dragging down major tech stocks and worrying companies reliant on China’s dominance in rare earth processing.

WASHINGTON — Sen. Jim Sasser (D-Tenn.), saying “the United States and this Administration have no trade policy,” Saturday called on the White House to impose restraints on shoe imports to help the suffering domestic footwear industry.

“It is time we got beyond simplistic catchwords that have immobilized us for so long,” he said in the Democratic response to President Reagan’s weekly radio address. “Free trade does not really exist in the modern market.”

“The U.S. shoe industry is literally withering on the vine due to a surge in footwear imports that reached 75% of the U.S. market in 1985,” Sasser said. In the senator’s home state, Tennessee, once the fifth-largest shoe-producing state in the country, 12 shoe factories have closed in the last 18 months.

Disarming in Trade War

“Far more is at stake here than the fate of a single industry. Frankly, we’re dealing with the credibility of our entire system of trade law,” Sasser said. “If the President fails to act here, where the evidence of import damage is truly extraordinary, we will be declaring unilateral disarmament in the intensifying battle for world trade.”

The President is required under law to act by next Sunday on a recommendation made by the International Trade Commission in June that he impose a novel shoe import quota system, in which the government would auction the right to import certain amounts of shoes.

“The International Trade Commission found that the shoe industry deserves and needs temporary relief, but the continued vacillation of the White House . . . only affirms what some of us have suspected for some time: that the United States and this Administration have no trade policy,” Sasser said.

“The belief that there is no middle ground between absolute free trade and absolute protectionism is largely responsible for the trade crisis we face today,” he added.

Trade Deficit Zooms

He said that the scope of that crisis is indicated by the growth of the nation’s trade deficit from $28 billion in 1981 to “the very real prospect of trade deficits that will have increased fivefold, to $150 billion” in 1985.

“For the first time in this century, the United States is now a debtor nation and our main export right now is American jobs,” Sasser said.

The problem, he said, is not with Japan or Canada or any other foreign nation. “The problem is ours and it’s a matter of gross inaction,” he said.

“The protectionist label is a red herring when virtually every government in the world seeks to assist its domestic industries with subsidies, with currency manipulation or with quotas,” he said.