On September 18, 2018, the Ministry of Finance announced that Office of the Customs Tariff Commission of the State Council decided to impose additional tariffs of 5% or 10% on 5,207 tax items and about 60 billion US dollars of goods originating in the United States starting from 12:01 on September 24, 2018. If the US insists on further increasing the tariff rate, the Chinese side will respond accordingly and the relevant matters will be announced separately.
The Chinese side reiterated that the purpose of implementing the above-mentioned tariff increase measures is to curb the escalation of trade frictions. It is a forced response to US unilateralism and trade protectionism. China hopes that the US side will stop trade frictions. China and the United States will adopt equality, integrity and pragmatism. Dialogue, mutual respect, and jointly safeguard the overall interests of bilateral economic and trade relations of mutual benefit and win-win, jointly safeguard the principle of free trade and the multilateral trading system, and jointly promote the prosperity and development of the world economy.
