China has announced it will impose 84 per cent tariffs on US goods imports from tomorrow, as the war of words and levies between the world’s two largest economies escalates. The new measures – 50 per cent on top of the 34 per cent already imposed by Beijing’s finance ministry – are a like for like increase for the 50 per cent increase levied by Trump overnight, taking the US’s total tariff on Chinese goods to 104 per cent. The FTSE100 – which was already down more than 2.3 per cent this morning – plunged even further to 3.6 per cent following the midday news.
Beijing had vowed a ‘firm and forceful’ response to Trump’s additional tariffs yesterday, declaring, ‘The Chinese people’s legitimate right to development is inalienable’. Hours before today’s announcement, Beijing released a 28,000-character white paper on trade with the US, which says it has the will and means to ‘fight until the end’, warning that the US will ‘reap what it sows’.
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