United States President Donald Trump warned on Friday of another tariff rate to hit on another USD$267 billion worth of Chinese imports coming into the country, taking the tit-for-tat US-China trade war to a fever pitch. Following the news of threats, US stock indexes reportedly plunged at one of its lowest.
This recent move from the Trump administration is seen as something that could surely further escalate the trade war going on between Washington and Beijing. China, on the other hand, has never been more ready as ever to retaliate on the Western powerhouse, especially on a number of US companies operating within its borders, a report from Reuters said.
Furthermore, the Xi Jinping administration has made it clear from the start that it won't back down on anything that Trump would throw in the court. Earlier on, Beijing said that it will put steep duties on USD$60 billion worth of US imports. And that will be just for starters.
The aforementioned USD$267 billion Chinese import tariff is on top of the existing levies slapped on an earlier USD$50 billion worth of goods plus an imminent tariff on yet another USD$200 billion worth of Chinese products.
In a statement released to the press while aboard the US Air Force One, Trump referred to the USD$200 billion import tariff as a policy that could happen much sooner depending on how Beijing is going to react against it.
Regardless, the pending USD$267 billion tariffs will be implemented anytime the POTUS wants it to.
Economic tensions between the White House and Beijing took to the highest peak over the weekend when official data, according to this report from the Guardian, showed that the Asian nation's trade surplus rate with the US continued to widen, with last month's being the highest.
As specified by the news outlet, the surplus in August hit a record level of USD$31.05 billion, which is up from July's USD$28 billion. Barely a year since Trump's office instigated the trade war against the Asian powerhouse, China's trade surplus with the US has already increased to nearly 15 percent, a rate which a lot of economic experts feared to further hike up.
US Stocks Affected
Trump's latest commentaries and threats severely affected the US stock market's performance over the weekend. According to the South China Morning Post, the Dow Jones industrial average plummeted by 140 points or .59 percent and the S&P followed suit by more than .30 percent.
