US President Donald Trump indicated he still believed China wants a trade deal with the US. But the passage of the Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act “doesn’t make it better”. “The Chinese are always negotiating. I’m very happy where we are,” he added, The Chinese want to make a deal. We’ll see what happens.”
Separately, Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross indicated that the next batch of tariffs on China is going to taken effect “if nothing happens between now and then”. US is set to impose 15% of around USD 156B of Chinese imports on December 15. Meanwhile, whether there will be tariff rollbacks also all depends on China’s “behavior between now and then”.
Also, Trump’s administration announced a series of tariffs actions yesterday. Firstly, steel and aluminum tariffs on Brazil and Argentine were restored. The US Trade Representative said it would review raising tariffs on EU products and added new ones because of the “lack of progress” in resolving the aircraft subsidies disputes. USTR also said it planned to raise tariffs on USD 2.4B in French products, including Champagne and handbags by 100%, as measures to France’s new digital services tax.
