Second round of US tariffs against China go into effect
America ramped-up its trade war with China overnight, with a second round of 25% tariffs, this time on $16bn-worth of Chinese products, having kicked into effect at the stroke of midnight.
As expected, the move triggered an immediate response from Beijing, which slapped retaliatory levies of the same value on US products.
China also said it planned to file a fresh complaint against the tariffs at the World Trade Organization (WTO), claiming that they were in breach of the organisation's rules. That was on top of another filed in July following the first round of tariffs imposed by the US.
The new tariffs came into force even as officials from both countries were holding talks in Washington this week.
According to remarks from the US president in July, the new $16bn-worth of levies were only a small part of the final amount of tariffs that might finally be levied. Together, the two giants had already slapped tariffs on a combined $100bn-worth of each others' products since early July with Donald Trump having said he was ready to tax all Chinese exports to the US, which were worth roughly $500bn.
To take note of, the US imported far more goods from China than it exported to it, leaving the Asian country at a bit of a disadvantage if it sought to equal Washington's moves, yuan for yuan.
Critically, it was feared that the impact of their actions would extend far and wide because of Chinese-based companies' use of integrated supply chains, which meant that China itself imported materials for assembly purchased from South East Asian countries such as Malaysia and Indonesia or even Japan.
The International Monetary Fund said last month that if the dispute continued to escalate it could trigger a 0.5% contraction in global growth by 2020.