The U.S Secretary of Commerce, Wilbur Ross. (Image via CNN.com)

U.S Secretary of Commerce: The tariffs are working against China

Alfonsus Adi Putra
Market & Investment
Export Import
Oct 10, 2019
2616
On his state visit to Australia, United States (U.S) Secretary of Commerce, Wilbur Ross, dropped his opinion about the tariffs slapped by the U.S on China, Thursday. Ross stated that thanks to the tariffs, Beijing started to pay more attention to what Washington wanted.

As a part of his state visit, Ross was attending a business function held by the American Chamber of Commerce in Sydney, Australia.

The Secretary of Commerce claimed that since a year ago, the U.S actually preferred not slapping any tariff to China. While it eventually caught Beijing’s attention, Ross pointed out that nobody wanted the trade war because of its negative effect globally. Should have Beijing cooperated with the U.S, a deal would have been taken in two and a half year ago.

On Thursday and Friday this week, the U.S – represented by its Trade Representative, Robert Lighthizer, and Secretary of Treasury, Robert Mnuchin – is going to meet once more with China, represented by Vice Premier Liu He.

The U.S demands for the Chinese are to respect and protect the U.S companies’ intellectual property rights, enhance its cybersecurity, and allow the U.S companies to access China’s closed markets. The Chinese, on the other hand, wanted the U.S not to hike the import tariffs.

According to Ross, the most difficult part of a talk is to abide by the agreement. Should the negotiations crumble, the U.S will proceed with its plan to hike the tariffs on the US$250 billion worth of imported Chinese goods from 25% to 30%.

Source: https://reut.rs/2p7r077

Politics , Economy , Export-Import , U.S , China , Trade-War , Wilbur-Ross