US-China trade war: Focus on Trump as December 15 deadline nears
Business Line
Published By: Anonymous
Washington is laying the groundwork for a delay in the latest
round of tariffs
US President Donald Trump has days to decide whether to impose
tariffs on nearly $160 billion in Chinese consumer goods just weeks before
Christmas, a move that could be unwelcome in both the United States and China.
The White House's top economic and trade advisers, including
Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer, Larry Kudlow, Peter Navarro, and
Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin are expected to meet in coming days with
Trump over that decision, one person briefed on the situation said. There is
still no clarity on what the decision will be.
Washington is laying the groundwork for a delay in the latest
tariffs, scheduled to take effect on December 15, but a final decision has not
been made, the person told Reuters. If the White
House does allow the December 15 tariffs to take effect, then the US-China deal
talks are likely done for the remainder of President Trumps term, the source
said.
“Either way we're going to be in a great place ... The president
loves them (the tariffs),” Navarro told Fox Business Network during
an interview Tuesday. “If we get a great deal, we'll be in a good place as
well. But it will be the president's decision. It will come soon.”
The way the tariffs are written, the Trump administration has to
act, or else they automatically go into effect, trade experts said. “Unless
USTR (the US Trade Representative) issues a notice of modification for these
tariffs, they will take effect on December 15 as scheduled,” said Tami Overby,
senior director at McLarty Associates, a Washington-based trade consultant.
Kudlow, director of the White Houses National Economic Council,
also said late Tuesday morning no decision had been made. “The reality is those
tariffs are still on the table, the December 15 tariffs, and the President has
indicated if the short strokes remaining in negotiations do not pan out to his
liking that those tariffs could go back into place,” Kudlow said at a Wall
Street Journal conference.
The Trump administration said in August it would put 15 per cent
tariffs on billions in Chinese-made consumer goods on December 15. Known as the
“4B” list of goods, those tariffs would hit video game consoles, computer
monitors, Christmas decorations, toys and other items including clothing often
given as gifts.
The White House has been deliberating for weeks whether or not
to impose the tariffs, and said in early November they would likely be averted
if a Phase-1 deal was reached. Both sides have still not reached agreement on
crucial parts of the deal. These include the amount of US agricultural goods
Beijing would agree to purchase and when the US would roll back other tariffs
it imposed on Chinese goods, people briefed on the talks said.
In November, the Trump administration failed to meet its own
deadline to impose tariffs on auto imports under a “Section 232” investigation.
The White House needs to find another way to tax foreign cars after letting that
deadline lapse, trade experts told Reuters.
Goods that would be affected by the December 15 tariffs include
industrial products like pesticides and other chemicals, but also a bevy of
consumer items that are in heavy demand around the Christmas and New Years
holidays, according to a Reuters analysis of
the tariff list announced in August. They include plastic tableware, handbags,
photo albums, woolen bathrobes, silk pajamas, turntables and jewelled
wristwatches.
While most goods that Americans will buy before Christmas had
been shipped long before, retailers could add opportunistic price increases,
trade experts said. “Trump does not want to do that right before Christmas. The
optics would be terrible,” William Reinsch, a former senior US Commerce official
and trade expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, told
Reuters in November.
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