Protectionism (Trade)

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    China Condemns American ‘Protectionism’

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    The Chinese government on Wednesday issued a lengthy denunciation of American trade policies, accusing the United States of years of protectionism and of violating the trade agreement the two sides had negotiated late in President Trump’s first term.The document was issued by Beijing’s cabinet information office several hours after Mr. Trump raised to 104 percent the extra tariffs on Chinese goods that he has imposed in his second term.The missive assailed the United States for preparing to impose additional 90 percent tariffs on May 2 on low-value parcels from China, which enter the United States with no customs inspection and no duties paid. The value of these so-called de minimis shipments has soared more than tenfold in recent years, exceeding $60 billion last year.There were a few unexpected conciliatory notes in the Chinese statement. “As two major countries at different stages of development with distinct economic systems, it is natural for China and the U.S. to have differences and frictions in their economic and trade cooperation,” it said.The report, issued by the State Council Information Office, criticized the United States for having considerably tightened export controls on the transfer to China of technologies with both civilian and military applications. The office suggested that this was a violation of the spirit of the so-called Phase One agreement reached in 2020. It said that China had abided by the pact, which also called for China to increase its purchases of American energy, agricultural products and manufactured goods, such as aircraft from Boeing, the American aerospace giant.“The Chinese side upheld the spirit of contract and endeavored to overcome multiple adverse factors, including the unexpected impact of the pandemic, subsequent supply chain disruptions, and global economic recession, to ensure implementation of the agreement,” the report said.China cited production delays by Boeing during the pandemic as reasons for not fulfilling that part of the pact. While Boeing has had delays, Chinese government-controlled airlines have refused to accept delivery of dozens of previously ordered planes for six years. At the same time, a heavily subsidized state-owned manufacturer, the Shanghai-based Commercial Aircraft Corporation of China, is racing to make its own single-aisle passenger planes.The commentary praised de minimis shipments as giving greater choice to consumers and helping small businesses to compete. Large Chinese e-commerce sites like Shein and Temu have expanded their shipments from factories in China straight to American households.The document noted that China allows de minimis shipments of parcels through delivery services. But in practice, China allows a far narrower exemption from tariffs than the $800 under the U.S. de minimis rules, limiting the value of many exempted parcels to $27.The document also did not mention that Congress raised the American de minimis limit to $800 in 2016, from $200 previously, kicking off a huge surge in such shipments across the Pacific from China and fueling a boom for Chinese e-commerce companies. More

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    Global Leaders Rush to Woo Trump, Hoping to Sway Him on Tariffs

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    Dozens of foreign governments were trying to appeal to the president to have steep tariffs rolled back, but the president and his advisers have indicated negotiations could be difficult.President Trump’s plan to impose sweeping tariffs on most of America’s trading partners has governments across the globe racing to schedule phone calls, send delegations to Washington and offer up proposals to lower their import taxes in order to escape the levies.On Monday, European officials offered to drop tariffs to zero on cars and industrial goods imported from the United States, in return for the same treatment. Israel’s prime minister was expected to personally petition Mr. Trump on Monday in meetings at the White House. Vietnam’s top leader, in a phone call last week, offered to get rid of tariffs on American goods, while Indonesia prepared to send a high-level delegation to Washington, D.C., to “directly negotiate with the U.S. government.”Even Lesotho, the tiny landlocked country in Southern Africa, was assembling a delegation to send to Washington to protest the tariffs on its exports to the United States, which include denim for Calvin Klein and Levi’s.Mr. Trump and his advisers have given mixed signals on whether the United States is willing to negotiate. On Sunday, Mr. Trump said that the tariffs would remain in place until U.S. trade deficits disappeared, meaning the United States is no longer buying more from these countries than it sells to them. But the administration still appeared to be welcoming offers from foreign nations, which are desperate to try to forestall more levies that go into effect on Wednesday.On Monday, as markets recoiled for a third day and Mr. Trump threatened even more punishing tariffs on China, the president said that “negotiations with other countries, which have also requested meetings, will begin taking place immediately.”“Countries from all over the World are talking to us,” the president wrote on Truth Social on Monday morning. “Tough but fair parameters are being set. Spoke to the Japanese Prime Minister this morning. He is sending a top team to negotiate!”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    After Navarro Defends Tariffs, Bessent Says Trump Is Ready to Negotiate

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    Peter Navarro, a senior White House trade adviser, on Monday defended the sweeping tariffs President Trump has imposed on foreign nations and indicated that other countries’ offers to drop their own tariffs on American products would be insufficient to convince the president to retreat.Mr. Navarro, who has been the architect of many of President Trump’s trade plans, said on CNBC that the United States was facing a national emergency based on chronic trade deficits, and the only fix would be foreign countries removing trade barriers that had hindered the flow of American goods.The European Union offered Monday to drop its tariffs on American cars and industrial goods to zero if the United States did the same. But Mr. Navarro criticized the bloc for its value-added taxes and restrictions on American meat exports, as well as systematically higher tariffs.“You steal from the American people every which way is possible,” Mr. Navarro said. “So, don’t just say we’re going to lower our tariffs.”Mr. Navarro also targeted Vietnam, which has appealed to the president in recent days to have its tariffs reduced. He accused Vietnam of dumping products into U.S. markets, engaging in intellectual property theft and killing industries like shrimp, kitchen cabinets and others.“When they come to us and say, we’ll go to zero tariffs, that means nothing to us, because it’s the non-tariff cheating that matters,” Mr. Navarro said.But Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, who, with Jamieson Greer, the United States trade representative, was put in charge of negotiations with Japan, signaled in an interview later in the day that Mr. Trump is ready to negotiate. “President Trump, as you know, is better than anyone at giving himself maximum leverage,” he said. Mr. Bessent said he had suggested that foreign officials “keep your cool, do not escalate and come to us with your offers.” He added: “And at a point, President Trump will be ready to negotiate.”In the CNBC interview in the morning, Mr. Navarro said that tax cuts were forthcoming, as well as other benefits for Americans, like deregulation, lower energy prices, lower interest rates and the restructuring of manufacturing.“We’re going to get to a place where America makes stuff again, real wages are going to be up, profits are going to be up,” he said, adding, “the market’s going to find a bottom.” Stock markets closed slightly lower Monday, following two days of punishing losses last week.He was also asked about Elon Musk’s very public criticism of tariffs and of Mr. Navarro specifically over the weekend. Responding to a social-media post praising Mr. Navarro, Mr. Musk on Saturday mocked Mr. Navarro’s Ivy League degree as useless, and then said Mr. Navarro had not “built” anything.On Monday, Mr. Navarro said that Mr. Musk was “not a car manufacturer” but “a car assembler,” mentioning that Tesla’s plant in Texas imported batteries, electronics, tires and other parts. “He wants the cheap foreign parts, and we understand that,” he said. More

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    Ted Cruz and Other Senate Republicans Question Trump’s Tariffs

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    Some Republican senators on Capitol Hill, including one of President Trump’s most ardent supporters, have signaled their uneasiness to the sweeping global tariffs that the president announced this week and that sent global markets reeling.Senator Ted Cruz, Republican of Texas, warned on Friday that a future where other countries slap retaliatory tariffs on U.S. goods, as China has already done, was a “very real possibility” and would be a “terrible outcome” for the country.“It’s terrible for America,” Mr. Cruz said on the latest episode of his podcast. “It would destroy jobs here at home and do real damage to the U.S. economy if we had tariffs everywhere.”Mr. Cruz also said that a trade war would likely push inflation up and burden consumers with higher costs.“I love President Trump. I’m his strongest supporter in the Senate,” Mr. Cruz said. “But here’s one thing to understand: A tariff is a tax, and it is a tax principally on American consumers.”Mr. Cruz’s comments came just two days after the Senate, in a largely symbolic move, voted to halt planned 25 percent levies on Canada. However, the bill is almost certain to die in the House — and even if it does not, Mr. Trump would be unlikely to sign it.Mr. Cruz was not among the Republican senators who joined all Democrats in pushing the bill through. They were Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Senator Susan Collins of Maine, and Senators Rand Paul and Mitch McConnell, both of Kentucky.On Thursday, another top Republican senator — Chuck Grassley of Iowa — teamed up with a Democrat to introduce a bill aiming to reclaim congressional authority over the implementation of tariffs.The bill, which Mr. Grassley co-sponsored with Senator Maria Cantwell, Democrat of Washington, would require the president to give Congress 48 hours notice of any new tariffs. Congress would then have to approve those tariffs within 60 days, or they would expire. Mr. Cruz was not a co-sponsor. More

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    Lawsuit Challenges Trump’s Legal Rationale for Tariffs on China

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    The New Civil Liberties Alliance — a nonprofit group that describes itself as battling “violations by the administrative state” — sued the federal government on Thursday over the means by which it imposed steep new levies on Chinese imports earlier this year.The new filing, which the group said was the first such lawsuit to challenge the Trump administration over its tariffs, set the stage for what may become a closely watched legal battle. It comes on the heels of President Trump’s separate announcement on Wednesday of broader, more extensive tariffs targeting many U.S. trading partners around the world.At issue are the tariffs that Mr. Trump announced on China in February and expanded in March. To impose them, Mr. Trump cited a 1970s law that generally grants the president sweeping powers during an economic emergency, known as the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, or IEEPA.Mr. Trump charged that an influx of illegal drugs from China constituted a threat to the United States. But the alliance argued in the lawsuit, on behalf of Simplified, a Pensacola, Fla.-based company, that the administration had misapplied the law. Instead, the group said the law “does not allow a president to impose tariffs,” but rather is supposed to be reserved for putting in place trade embargoes and sanctions against “dangerous foreign actors.”Port Manatee in Palmetto, Fla., on TuesdayScott McIntyre for The New York TimesMr. Trump cited that same law as one of the legal justifications for the expansive global tariffs he announced with an executive order on Wednesday. That order raised the tariff rate on China to at least 54 percent, adding new levies on top of those that the president imposed earlier this year.Mr. Trump’s new order specifically described the U.S. trade deficit with other nations as “an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and economy of the United States.”For now, the alliance asked the U.S. District Court in the Northern District of Florida to block implementation and enforcement of the president’s earlier tariffs on China. “You can look through the statute all day long; you’re not going to see the president may put tariffs on the American people once he declares an emergency,” said John J. Vecchione, senior litigation counsel for the alliance.A spokesman for the White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment. More

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    How Much Will Trump’s Tariffs Cost U.S. Importers?

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    <!–> –><!–> [–><!–> –><!–> [–><!–> –><!–> [–><!–> –><!–> [–><!–> –><!–> [–><!–> –><!–> [–><!–> –><!–> [–><!–> –><!–> [–><!–> –><!–> [–> <!–> [–> China The average tariff rate in 2024 was 11.4% and would increase to 62.9% under Trump’s tariffs.<!–> –> Vietnam The average tariff rate in 2024 was 3.8% and would increase to 48.4% under Trump’s […] More

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    Trump’s Tariffs Hit Garment Makers in Bangladesh and Sri Lanka Hard

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    Through Covid, political chaos, and economic disarray, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh kept one industry central to their hopes of prosperity afloat: the manufacturing of ready-made garments, with the United States as their main market.Then came President Trump’s tariffs.The two countries are reeling after Sri Lanka was hit with 44 percent tariffs and Bangladesh subjected to 37 percent levies. Officials in both countries scrambled to contain panic among business leaders, who worried that they may no longer be able to compete with bigger manufacturing powers, and that their orders could shift to places with lower tariffs and greater industrial muscle.“We will have to write our obituary notice,” said Tuli Cooray, a consultant at the Joint Apparel Association Forum of Sri Lanka, an industry association. “Forty-four percent is no joke.”The Trump administration’s tariffs have hit countries at the heart of the global apparel industry especially hard. An analysis by William Blair, an equity research firm, showed that the countries that produce 85 percent of U.S. apparel imports faced an average tariff of 32 percent.Targeting the manufacturers not only upends the economies of these nations, but also adds to the burden of U.S. companies, analysts warned. William Blair said merchandise costs could go up by about 30 percent and American consumers may ultimately feel the pinch.Bangladesh sends more than $7bn of clothing to the U.S. every year. The country’s garment manufacturing industry makes up 80 percent of its total exports and employs more than four million people, mostly women. Bangladesh has one of the highest female work force participation rates in the region, which has helped lift a large section of the population out of poverty.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Trump’s Tariffs Pose a New Threat for Germany’s Stagnant Economy

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    Germany had hoped that a new government would revive its stagnant economy, but President Trump’s sweeping new tariffs are stoking worries that the country will fall short of its 0.3 percent growth expectations this year.Calling the tariffs “an attack on the rules of global trade which created prosperity around the world,” Olaf Scholz, Germany’s chancellor, stressed on Thursday that his country was counting on cooperation among the European Union members to defend their interests.Mr. Scholz, whose government lost an election in February but is still operating in a caretaker capacity, is limited in his ability to act as the country awaits the formation of a new government, expected in the coming weeks. The timing couldn’t be worse for Germany, Europe’s largest economy, to respond to the tariffs without clear leadership.Germany could be the hardest hit of all 27 members of the bloc, given the large amount of trade that Germany does with the United States. Last year, Germany exported goods worth 161.4 billion euros, or $178.4 billion, to the United States, according to the country’s federal statistics office.Last month, Germany’s Parliament agreed to loosen the country’s restrictions on debt in an effort to juice the economy, which contracted for the past two years. The move allowed lawmakers to create a new infrastructure fund worth €500 billion (almost $550 billion), which restored some optimism to markets and businesses.But economists at Morgan Stanley warned that the impact of the tariffs could threaten prospective growth sparked by the package and the possibility of increased spending on defense.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More