US set to impose 10% tariff on $200bn of Chinese goods

The White House is set to announce new tariffs on as many as $200.0bn-worth of Chinese-made goods, probably towards the start of the coming week.

That was according to reports at the weekend from Reuters and the Journal.

Significantly, according to the latter of those two reports, published on Saturday, the tariff rate that would finally be applied "within days" would probably be of approximately 10% and not the 25% which the US administration had originally threatened.

According to one observer cited by Reuters, the reduction in the tariff rate finally chosen might be the result of the 'feed-back' received during the government's public comment period on its tariff proposals.

Nevertheless, should the reports prove to be correct, there was some concern in markets that the announcement of new tariffs might hinder US Treasury Secretary, Steve Mnuchin's, attempts to restart talks with Beijing.

On Sunday, the Journal also reported that Beijing was studying the option of snubbing the White House's offer of talks.

As an aside, and also at the weekend, at an event hosted by The Economist, ex-Deputy Secretary of the Treasury, Larry Summers, and ex-Bank of England deputy governor, Minouche Shafik, appeared to agree that US trade policy vis-a-vis China should perhaps focus more on aspects such as safeguarding intellectual property rights in the Asian giant.