China facing mounting tariff threat

The trade sanctions announced so far this year by the Trump administration on solar panels, washing machines, steel and aluminium have been inconsequential from China’s perspective: the US last year imported only around $6bn worth of these products from China. Media reports suggest that much more extensive tariffs are now being considered as a response to China’s theft of intellectual property from US firms. These could cover US imports from China worth up to $60bn. That would still only be 12% of China’s total goods exports to the US but enough, we suspect, to draw a response from Beijing.