U.S. President Trump announced on Thursday the U.S. will implement 10% tariffs on an additional US$300 billion worth of Chinese goods, effective Sept. 1.
The surprise move comes after trade talks in Shanghai ended with little progress being made.
In a series of Tweets, Trump said the new tariffs would be in addition to the 25% tariffs on US$250 billion of imports already in place.
He also said that China had not followed through on its offer to buy more agricultural product from the U.S.
Our representatives have just returned from China where they had constructive talks having to do with a future Trade Deal. We thought we had a deal with China three months ago, but sadly, China decided to re-negotiate the deal prior to signing. More recently, China agreed to…
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 1, 2019
…during the talks the U.S. will start, on September 1st, putting a small additional Tariff of 10% on the remaining 300 Billion Dollars of goods and products coming from China into our Country. This does not include the 250 Billion Dollars already Tariffed at 25%…
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 1, 2019
“We thought we had a deal with China three months ago, but sadly, China decided to renegotiate the deal prior to signing,” Trump said.
“More recently, China agreed to buy agricultural product from the U.S. in large quantities, but did not do so.”
The U.S. imported a total of US$539 billion from China in 2018. If implemented, this latest tariff threat would therefore mean that all Chinese imports will face tariffs.