President of United States, Donald Trump, is being bold to the Chinese, amid the trade war (Image via: Fox News)

Man of His Word, Trump Raises Tariff over China’s Goods

Realizing his tweets about China’s tariff, per today Trump decided to lift the duty from 10% to 25% for all untaxed Chinese goods, worth of US$200 billion. On 5 May 2019, Trump posted in his Twitter that US is at loss, regarding their business with the Chinese. He then threatened to raise the tariff for US$ 325 billion worth of untaxed goods.

Accusing the Chinese is backing off from the commitment agreed previously and abusing the trade deals, Trump decided to go all out with his threat.
Accompanied by Robert Lighthizer - Trade Representative for US - and Steve Mnuchin – Treasury Secretary for US -, Donald Trump announced in the official press conference that the tariff will raise from 10% to 25% over the estimated US$200 billion Chinese untaxed, imported goods. This tariff raise will run into force starting 10 May.

After the conference, Lighthizer and Mnuchin are scheduled to have a working dinner with vice-premier of China Liu He to negotiate the trade agreement. Despite the trade agreement talk, later on, it seems that the talks will not go anywhere, as Trump stood on his ground about the raise.

Geng Shuang, China’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, once said that the tariff raise will not solve the problem, but Donald Trump has something different in mind. In addition, the Chinese will not sit still concerning this new policy and promised to “do something in return” about the raise. What thing? Nobody knows, but the Chinese.

Looking back on the threatening tweet, Trump only slaps the tariff on US$200 billion, different from the amount on his tweet, US$325 billion.

Until now, the trade war between US and China has been in this manner: US has charged US$250 billion worth of Chinese goods with a 25% tariff, while the Chinese had charged US$110 billion worth of American goods.
Nobody knows what happens behind the curtain. Certainly, the Chinese smell the coffee better than anyone else. Norman Reedus once said, “Dogs with the loudest bark, are the ones that are most afraid”. The Chinese seems to agree, since they assumed that despite the tough talk, Trump was hesitant with his own policy. Donald Trump had a “secret talk” with Jerome Powell, head of Federal Reserve, to lower the interest rates. For them, this means that US might someday give in to their bidding since this “secret talk” reflects that US economy is not as good as what Trump claimed.

Source: https://www.cnbc.com/2019/05/10/china-trade-us-tariffs-jump-but-trade-war-talks-to-continue.html