China hits back with tariffs on US imports worth $3bn
China has imposed tariffs of up to 25% on 128 US imports, including pork and wine, after US President Donald Trump raised duties on foreign steel and aluminium imports in March.
The tariffs affecting some $3bn (£2.1bn) of imports kick in on Monday.
Beijing said the move was to "safeguard China's interests and balance" losses caused by new US tariffs.
China had previously said it did not want a trade war but would not sit by if its economy was hurt .
Mr Trump, however, has insisted that "trade wars are good", and that it should be "easy" for the US to win one.
The American authorities have already announced plans for further targeted tariffs for tens of billions of dollars of Chinese imports, the BBC's Chris Buckler reports from Washington.
They say that is in response to unfair trading practices in China that affect US companies but it raises the possibility of yet more action being taken in what has become a tit-for-tat trade battle, our correspondent adds.
Relatively mild to start with
By Stephen McDonell, BBC News, Hong Kong
China's theft of foreign intellectual property is what sparked all this in the first place, according to Washington. If international companies want to operate in China they must hand over their intellectual property for the privilege, thus delivering the likes of German high-speed rail technology into the hands of Chinese engineers.
Yet now that China's retaliatory tariffs have kicked in, there are also those sympathetic with that argument who are worried that launching a potential tariff war is not the way to fix the problem. Naturally others say China has been getting away with this for years and tough measures were needed in order to force change.
There is also the overall imbalance in US-China trade but a large Chinese surplus, of course, means it is potentially much more exposed during a trade war than America. For this reason Beijing will want to negotiate a way out of this escalating tariff showdown.
Its first set of tariffs are relatively mild but they come in response to the first round of US tariffs and a second has already been announced. There are plenty more American companies to be hit and other nations, especially those in Europe and Asia, could soon find themselves dragged into this conflict.
Which products are affected?
US scrap aluminium and frozen pork will be subject to a 25% additional tariff - on top of existing duties.
Several other American foods including nuts, fresh and dried fruit, ginseng and wine will be hit by a 15% increase.
Rolled steel bars will likewise see a 15% rise in duties.
Why is this happening now?
China said the new tariffs were a retaliatory measure in light of Mr Trump's decision to raise duties on steel and aluminium imports.
But further tax hikes may lie ahead.
On 22 March, the US said it was planning to impose duties on up to $60bn of Chinese imports and limit its investment in the US, in retaliation for years of alleged intellectual property theft.
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-43614400
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There can not be one thinking human being in the United States who thinks that starting a trade war with China or with any nation or with the rest of the world was anything but a godawful stupid fucking idea. It is going to cost us billions in dollars and hundreds of thousands in American jobs and the return will be next to nothing and certainly not even a pitiful fraction of the cost. Whoever it was on FOX TV (because that is the only place this brain dead twit gets any of his ideas) who gave him the idea of doing this should be beaten until they are almost dead, then saved (at their own expense with no insurance at all) until they are completely healthy and then beaten to near death again and then have it happen at least 10 more times. Then the same penalty should befall anyone who is so fucking ignorant who follows this malignant moron into this idea because they will have shown themselves to be only worth being locked in a dungeon where the rest of the world will not have to be exposed to their stupidity...or their votes for any further GOP candidates.
Twenty years ago it may have been easy to hurt China. Not so now. I can see the USA being hurt instead - the workers losing jobs, the poor not being able to afford cheap goods. Wait and see whats going to happen.
The working class Americans depend on goods from China. Making those goods more expensive is not going to suddenly cause some revival in American industry in the manufacturing of those same items. In other words the idea that this will create more American jobs or be helpful America in any manner at all is completely absurd. Starting any kind of a trade war is one of the most ignorant ideas there is right now. The worldwide economy is just too much that, worldwide, for trade wars to be winnable by anyone any longer. All they will do is damage everyone and especially the poor and working class of the United States.
Impossible to see this coming. We need an eye-roll emoji.
Nobody wins a trade war...Thus far it been a slap fight IMO...If it escalates both U.S. and China will be hurt.
Trump says a trade war is easy to win, but in this case China is holding all of the aces and if it's not stopped now it will get a whole lot worse, with a lot of job losses in America, before our government wises up and cuts it out. China will get hurt, but we will get our ass kicked.