The Daily Populous Tuesday February 4th, 2025 day edition
Authored by apnews.com and submitted by scrandis

BEIJING (AP) — China announced retaliatory tariffs on select American imports and an antitrust investigation into Google on Tuesday, just minutes after a sweeping levy on Chinese products imposed by U.S. President Donald Trump took effect.

American tariffs on imports from Canada and Mexico were also set to go into effect Tuesday before Trump agreed to a 30-day pause as the two countries acted to address his concerns about border security and drug trafficking. Trump planned to talk with Chinese President Xi Jinping in the next few days.

This isn’t the first round of tit-for-tat actions between the two countries. China and the U.S. engaged in an escalating trade war in 2018 when Trump repeatedly raised tariffs on Chinese goods and China responded each time.

This time, analysts said, China is much better prepared, announcing a slew of measures that go beyond tariffs and cut across different sectors of the U.S. economy. The government is also more wary of upsetting its own fragile and heavily trade-dependent economy.

“It’s aiming for finding measures that maximize the impact and also minimize the risk that the Chinese economy may face,” said Gary Ng, a senior economist at Natixis Corporate and Investment Banking in Hong Kong. “At the same time ... China is trying to increase its bargaining chips.”

John Gong, a professor at the University of International Business and Economics in Beijing, called the response a “measured” one. “I don’t think they want the trade war escalating,” he said. “And they see this example from Canada and Mexico and probably they are hoping for the same thing.”

Guohua Power Station, a coal-fired power plant, operates in Dingzhou, Baoding, in the northern China’s Hebei province, Nov. 10, 2023. (AP Photo/Ng Han Guan, File) Guohua Power Station, a coal-fired power plant, operates in Dingzhou, Baoding, in the northern China’s Hebei province, Nov. 10, 2023. (AP Photo/Ng Han Guan, File) Share Share Copy Link copied

China said it would implement a 15% tariff on coal and liquefied natural gas products as well as a 10% tariff on crude oil, agricultural machinery and large-engine cars imported from the U.S. The tariffs would take effect next Monday.

“The U.S.’s unilateral tariff increase seriously violates the rules of the World Trade Organization,” the State Council Tariff Commission said in a statement. “It is not only unhelpful in solving its own problems, but also damages normal economic and trade cooperation between China and the U.S.”

The impact on U.S. exports may be limited. Though the U.S. is the biggest exporter of liquid natural gas globally, it does not export much to China. In 2023, the U.S. exported 173,247 million cubic feet of LNG to China, about 2.3% of its total natural gas exports, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

China imported only about 700,000 cars overall last year, and the leading importers are from Europe and Japan, said Bill Russo, the founder of the Automobility Limited consultancy in Shanghai.

The response from China appears calculated and measured, said Stephen Dover, chief market strategist and head of the Franklin Templeton Institute, a financial research firm. However, he said, the world is bracing for further impact.

“A risk is that this is the beginning of a tit-for-tat trade war, which could result in lower GDP growth everywhere, higher U.S. inflation, a stronger dollar and upside pressure on U.S. interest rates,” Dover said.

Further export controls on critical minerals

A man works at a manufacturer of Integrated Chip encapsulation in Nantong in eastern China’s Jiangsu province on Friday, Sept. 16, 2022. (Chinatopix Via AP, File) A man works at a manufacturer of Integrated Chip encapsulation in Nantong in eastern China’s Jiangsu province on Friday, Sept. 16, 2022. (Chinatopix Via AP, File) Share Share Copy Link copied

China announced export controls on several elements critical to the production of modern high-tech products.

They include tungsten, tellurium, bismuth, molybdenum and indium, many of which are designated as critical minerals by the U.S. Geological Survey, meaning they are essential to U.S. economic or national security that have supply chains vulnerable to disruption.

The export controls are in addition to ones China placed in December on key elements such as gallium.

“They have a much more developed export control regime,” Philip Luck, an economist at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and former State Department official, said at a panel discussion on Monday.

“We depend on them for a lot of critical minerals: gallium, germanium, graphite, a host of others,” he said. “They could put some significant harm on our economy.”

Visitors past by a Google booth promoting Artificial Intelligence at a supply chain expo in Beijing, Wednesday, Nov. 27, 2024. (AP Photo/Ng Han Guan) Visitors past by a Google booth promoting Artificial Intelligence at a supply chain expo in Beijing, Wednesday, Nov. 27, 2024. (AP Photo/Ng Han Guan) Share Share Copy Link copied

China’s State Administration for Market Regulation said Tuesday it is investigating Google on suspicion of violating antitrust laws. The announcement did not mention the tariffs but came just minutes after Trump’s 10% tariffs on China were to take effect.

It is unclear how the probe will affect Google’s operations. The company has long faced complaints from Chinese smartphone makers over its business practices surrounding the Android operating system, Gong said.

Overall, Google has a smaller presence in China than many markets, with its search engine blocked like many other Western platforms. Google exited the Chinese market in 2010 after refusing to comply with censorship requests from the Chinese government and following a series of cyberattacks on the company.

Women walk by a fashion display of Tommy Hilfiger, which is owned by PVH Group, at a shopping mall in Beijing, Tuesday, Feb. 4, 2025. (AP Photo/Andy Wong) Women walk by a fashion display of Tommy Hilfiger, which is owned by PVH Group, at a shopping mall in Beijing, Tuesday, Feb. 4, 2025. (AP Photo/Andy Wong) Share Share Copy Link copied

Shoppers tour by Calvin Klein and Tommy Hilfiger fashion boutiques, which are owned by PVH Group, at a shopping mall in Beijing, Tuesday, Feb. 4, 2025. (AP Photo/Andy Wong) Shoppers tour by Calvin Klein and Tommy Hilfiger fashion boutiques, which are owned by PVH Group, at a shopping mall in Beijing, Tuesday, Feb. 4, 2025. (AP Photo/Andy Wong) Share Share Copy Link copied

Print Read More Women take a picture with a decoration on display near an American fashion boutiques at an outdoor shopping mall in Beijing, Tuesday, Feb. 4, 2025. (AP Photo/Andy Wong) Women take a picture with a decoration on display near an American fashion boutiques at an outdoor shopping mall in Beijing, Tuesday, Feb. 4, 2025. (AP Photo/Andy Wong) Share Share Copy Link copied

The Commerce Ministry also placed two American companies on an unreliable entities list: PVH Group, which owns Calvin Klein and Tommy Hilfiger, and Illumina, which is a biotechnology company with offices in China. The listing could bar them from engaging in China-related import or export activities and from making new investments in the country.

Beijing began investigating PVH Group in September last year over “improper Xinjiang-related behavior” after the company allegedly boycotted the use of Xinjiang cotton.

Putting these U.S. companies on the unreliable entities list is “alarming” because it shows that the Chinese government is using the list to pressure U.S. companies to take a side, said George Chen, managing director for The Asia Group, a Washington D.C.-headquartered business policy consultancy.

“It’s almost like telling American companies, what your government is doing is bad, you need to tell the government that if you add more tariffs or hurt U.S.-China relations at the end of the day it’ll backfire on American companies,” Chen said.

Wu reported from Bangkok. Associated Press writers Zen Soo in Hong Kong and Christopher Bodeen in Taipei, Taiwan, contributed to this report.

haha-hehe-haha-ho on February 4th, 2025 at 06:18 UTC »

Trump is proving to be a global unifying force.. against the USA 😬

SubArcticJohnny on February 4th, 2025 at 05:58 UTC »

Let's see how this winning strategy pans out.

"Retaliatory tariffs during Trump's first term resulted in around $27 billion in lost U.S. agricultural exports, including $25.7 billion in sales to China, according to Rabobank analysts." Farm Progress, February 3, 2025

More winning in the works, stand by.

bignikaus on February 4th, 2025 at 05:44 UTC »

I guess Australian coal just got 15% more competitive. No complaints from me. Let's see the art of this deal.