US and China relaunch trade hostilities

The United States and China began Sunday, September 1 to levy new customs duties on their mutual imports, marking a new escalation in the trade dispute between them for a year and a half. Donald Trump, however, assured that a meeting between delegations from both countries was still scheduled in September.

On his Twitter account, the US President also reaffirmed Sunday afternoon that his goal was to reduce the dependence of the United States vis-à-vis China and he again invited US companies to find other sources supply.

US crude oil taxed for the first time

The new episode of the trade war declared to China by Donald Trump in March 2018 began at 04:01 GMT, with Beijing raising its taxes on about $ 75 billion of US imports, 5% or 10% depending on some products. For the first time since the beginning of the conflict, US crude oil is among the taxed products.

These new tariffs cover more than 1,700 US products out of a total of about 5,000 products. The rest of the products will be surcharged by Beijing on December 15th.

For its part, the United States now receives 15% tariff on more than 125 billion dollars of Chinese products. These products include connected watches, Bluetooth headsets and many clothing products.

"We do not want to be the servants of China," said Donald Trump, "It's a question of American freedom, change the supply chain, there's no reason to buy everything from China!"

"Brute of schoolyard"

Subsequently, the US president said that contacts were continuing with Beijing to organize a meeting in September. No date was communicated for this meeting at ministerial level. "We are talking to China, the meeting is still scheduled, as you know, in September.We will see what happens, but we can not let China scam us more."

China's official press has been equally virulent. "The United States should learn to behave like a responsible world power and stop acting like a 'schoolyard brute', the China News Agency wrote, stressing the need for the United States to contribute to to make the world "a more prosperous place". "Only then will America regain its greatness," she adds, referring to Donald Trump's "Make America great again" campaign slogan.

High technology targeted from December

Donald Trump decided on Aug. 23 to raise tariffs on $ 550 billion of imported Chinese goods by another five percentage points in response to Beijing's decision to impose punitive tariffs on $ 75 billion worth of products. US.

Taxes of 15% will be imposed by Washington from December 15 and will target in particular high technology – smartphones, laptops and video game consoles.

Donald Trump has pushed back the introduction of these tariffs in mid-December to avoid that they weigh on the turnover of Apple and other American giants on the occasion of the end of the year celebrations .

With Reuters (Ben Blanchard and Steve Holland, Jean Terzian and Jean-Stéphane Brosse for French service)