China hits back at Donald Trump tariffs

China on Friday hit back at the US by slapping an additional 34 per cent tariff on all imported American products The tariffs will be imposed on all imported US products starting April 10 staterun Xinhua news agency reported China also filed a lawsuit with WTO after the US slapped ldquoreciprocal tariffs on trading partners and has decided to ban the export of dualuse items to 16 US entitiesWorld markets tumbleStock markets worldwide were careening even lower on Friday after China matched Trumps big raise in tariffs The SampP 500 was down 5 per cent in morning trading coming off its worst day since COVID wrecked the global economy in 2020 The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 1656 points or 42 per cent as of 1050 am ET and the Nasdaq composite was 55 per cent lowerEuropean stocks saw some of the days biggest losses with indexes sinking roughly 5 per cent The price of crude oil tumbled to its lowest level since 2021 Other basic building blocks for economic growth such as copper also saw prices slide on worries the trade war will weaken the global economy In other markets Germanys DAX lost 52 per cent Frances CAC 40 dropped 46 per cent and Japans Nikkei 225 fell 28 per centMinor relief for IndiaThe US has revised the import duties to be imposed on India from 27 per cent to 26 per cent White House documents showed Announcing reciprocal tariffs on Wednesday US President Donald Trump held up a chart that showed India charged 52 per cent tariffs including currency manipulation and trade barriers and said America would charge India a discounted reciprocal tariff of 26 per cent Earlier White house documents indicated a 27 per cent tariff India was among about 60 other countries against which the US has announced these high taxeslsquoUS markets will boomrsquoTrump has previously said tariffs could cause ldquoa little disturbancerdquo in the economy and markets and on Thursday he again downplayed the impact as he left the White House to fly to Florida ldquoThe markets are going to boom the stock is going to boom and the country is going to boomrdquo Trump saidTrump takes a breakTrump on Friday was at his MaraLago club in Palm Beach and played golf after writing on social media that ldquoTHIS IS A GREAT TIME TO GET RICHrdquolsquoUnnecessary strain on USIndia tiesrsquoIndianAmerican Congressman Raja Krishnamoorthi condemned the tariffs imposed by US President Donald Trump on India saying the levies place an ldquounnecessary strainrdquo on Washingtons relationship with Delhi at a time when the bilateral partnership is crucial to counter Chinas military aggression and economic coercion ldquoPresident Trumps latest blanket tariffs on India are not only misguided but also profoundly damaging to the economic diplomatic and security interests of the USrdquo Krishnamoorthi a Democrat lawmaker from Illinois saidlsquoTariffs not based on standard economicsrsquoA top trade analyst has said the Trump administrations calculations that led to the tariffs are ldquonot standard economicsrdquo and in many cases impose rates far higher than those that the targeted countries apply to US goods Julia Spies chief of trade and market intelligence at the International Trade Center said uncertainties remain about the exact way US officials came up with the tariffs She said the figures roughly match the US trade balancemdashor imbalancemdashwith a specific country divided by imports from that country ldquoand that divided by two gives us the reciprocal tariffrdquo imposed by the USIndiaUS trade connectFrom 202122 to 202324 the US has been Indias largest trading partner The country accounts for about 18 per cent of Indias total goods exports 622 per cent in imports and 1073 per cent bilateral trade With America India had a trade surplus the difference between imports and exports of 3532 bn in goods in 202324 This was 277 bn in 202223 3285 bn in 202122 2273 bn in 202021 and 1726 bn in 201920This story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever