CHINA/TARIFFS/TRADE WAR/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT: “The trade war is back on. China on Friday [8-2-19] slammed President Donald Trump’s decision to slap a 10% tariff on $300 billion worth of goods, effectively taxing all Chinese exports to the United States. Beijing said it was ready for a fight. ‘China will have to take necessary counter-measures,’ a spokesperson for China’s Ministry of Commerce said in a statement, adding that ‘all the consequences will be borne by the US.’ Beijing may be able to cope with the fallout from an escalating fight between the world’s two biggest economics, but it faces more constraints than Washington and will have to calibrate retaliation carefully…China has previously fired back with tariffs of its own on goods from the United States. It responded to Trump’s last escalation in May by hiking duties on US goods worth $60 billion from 10% to 25%. But China buys a lot less from the United States than it sells, meaning it has only $120 billion worth of goods to target. Washington can tax around $540 billion of Chinese imports.”
–Rishi Iyengar, “China has ‘few good options’ to hit back against new US tariffs,” CNN Politics, CNN.com, August 2, 2019 3:05 pm