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.
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