China Readies More Tariffs on U.S. Goods

China’s State Council says it is poised to expand tariffs to an additional $60 billion in U.S. goods if the Trump administration moves ahead with its own levies on $200 billion of imported Chinese goods.

The Chinese council says the new taxes would range between 5% and 25% and cover more than 5,200 additional U.S. products.

President Donald Trump is trying to pressure China to reduce its trade surplus with the U.S. and stop requiring American companies to trade access to their intellectual property in exchange for access to Chinese markets. He has vowed to escalate tariffs until China addresses those issues.

The tit-for-tat trade war between the U.S. and China began last month, when the U.S. imposed a 25% import tax on $34 billion worth of Chinese imports. China immediately responded with new tariffs on an equal value of U.S. goods, including cars.

The U.S. plans to expand its first-round taxes to cover another $16 billion of Chinese items. Trump also has threatened to expand those levies to cover $200 billion in goods, or virtually everything China exports to the U.S.