On Friday, Global Times editor Hu Xijin warned that retaliatory tariffs from Beijing were imminent, as the next phase in the Sino-US trade war looms.
“Based on what I know China will take further countermeasures in response to US tariffs”, he tweeted, presaging action from Xi.
As usual, Hu’s tweets proved remarkably prescient for a newspaper editor. Less than an hour later, China’s Ministry of Finance rolled out the countermeasures on its website.
Read more: China To Unveil Retaliatory Tariffs On US Goods, Global Times Promises ‘Pain’
Beijing will hit an additional $75 billion of US goods with tariffs ranging from 5-10%.
The duties will take effect on September 1 and December 15, in line with the scheduled dates for Trump’s next round of levies on Chinese products.
An extra 5% levy on US soybeans will take effect starting next month, as will a 5% tax on US crude oil imports.
It also looks as though China will resume tariffs on US autos. Shares of GM, Ford and Tesla all sank in pre-market trading on the headlines.
More broadly, markets reacted in predictable fashion. US equity futures fell, the yen rallied, soybean futures dipped, Treasurys pared losses and EM currencies dropped.
Peter Navarro seemingly knew this was coming. He was already on Fox Business with a rejoinder.
“We’re going to have negotiations”, he said. Navarro also claimed this won’t affect the US economy.
This will be a wild day/weekend…what will Trump do now? What will the Fed do? The G7 will be another diaster with Trump no doubt in a sour mood. Yep, trade wars are good & easy to win.
I am hedging reality using stupidity. So far it seems to work. Reality, is what is going on, and it’s effects on macro. Stupidity, is the market reaction and expectations of cuts. Seems to work so far.
Well, action and reaction, what’d you expect?
And Mitch just sits on his thumbs and says nothing.