Trump's Tariffs: China's Biggest Concerns

On July 6, 2018, the Trump administration officially imposed a 25 percent tariff on goods worth 34 billion U.S. dollars from China, marking the official launch of Trump’s tariff policy towards Beijing.

While some Chinese experts are expressing their worries on social media about the impact this trade war could have on China’s economy, the U.S. based Brookings Institute published a report in which they claim that in the high-tech field that Trump wants to strike, the "added value" from China among these products is very low. Therefore, it is posited that Trump's blow will only hurt companies from the United States and its allies.

According to statistics from Xinhua News Agency, more than half of China's trade surplus comes from foreign-funded enterprises and processing trade. In the entire trade process, China only earns a small amount of processing fees, while the United States benefits greatly from design, parts supply, and marketing. If the trade in goods, trade in services, and the overseas sales of multinational corporations are all taken into consideration, the overall trade interests of China and the United States will be balanced.