CHINA announced yesterday tariffs of 5 percent or 10 percent on U.S. products worth US$60 billion starting from Sept. 24 for retaliation on the United States’ fresh tariff decision, in a move to safeguard the country’s legitimate interests and the global free trade order.

The announcement was made by the State Council Customs Tariff Commission.

The Ministry of Commerce said earlier yesterday it “deeply regrets” that in spite of the overwhelming international and domestic opposition, the United States announced a 10- percent tariff on US$200 billion worth of Chinese goods starting from Sept. 24 and will also adopt other tariff measures.

The United States insists on leveraging tariff hikes, which brings new uncertainty to the negotiations between the two sides, the ministry said.

The ministry added it hoped that the United States will recognize the potential negative consequences of its tariff actions and correct them in a timely manner.

The U.S. decision came under intense fire, as business leaders and trade experts opposed the escalatory move.

U.S. Chamber of Commerce president and CEO Thomas Donohue slammed the tariffs as anti-growth.

“The U.S. economy runs on pro-growth policies, but that’s not what tariffs on US$200 billion worth of Chinese goods deliver,” he said.

Donohue referenced back to a six-day hearing in August where more than 300 U.S. businesses and trade organizations pleaded that U.S. trade officials should rescind additional tariffs on Chinese goods, using statistics and props to show the reasoning behind such measures was ill-founded.

“Today’s decision makes clear that the administration did not heed the numerous warnings from American consumers and businesses about rising costs and lost jobs on Main Street, in factories, and on farms and ranches across the country,” Donohue said, lamenting that the U.S. Government had turned a blind eye to the overwhelming opposition by businesses.

Gary Shapiro, representing the Consumer Technology Association, questioned the legality of newly announced tariffs.

“Today’s retaliatory tariffs are not an effective trade policy and may violate U.S. law. Congress has not given the president or the USTR (U.S. Trade Representative) a blank check to pursue a trade war. These new retaliatory tariffs run afoul of the carefully tailored provisions of the Trade Act of 1974, which require any action to be within the scope of the Section 301 investigation,” Shapiro said in a statement.

Adam Posen, a leading trade expert and president of the Peterson Institute for International Economics, said at a forum Monday that the tariff strategy is destined to fail, as it will not resolve trade disputes but will stifle U.S. competitiveness and undermine consumption power of the U.S. working class.

Jacob Lew, a former U.S. Secretary of Treasury, told the same forum that the path Washington should pursue is constructive engagement with Beijing to seek consensus and mitigate differences. Slapping tariffs against China will only make things worse, he said.

(Xinhua)