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 President Donald Trump will keep pressing China for trade concessions, a top White House economic adviser said, as the Asian nation continued the tariff escalation by announcing further retaliatory actions against U.S. goods. 
 
 “We’ve said many times: no tariffs, no tariff barriers, no subsidies. We want to see trade reforms. China is not delivering, OK?,” National Economic Council Director Larry Kudlow said in a Bloomberg Television interview on Friday. “Their economy’s weak, their currency is weak, people are leaving the country. Don’t underestimate President Trump’s determination to follow through.” 
 
 China also signaled on Friday it has no intention of retreating from a trade war. The government announced it has prepared a list of $60 billion worth of U.S. goods to hit with duties should the U.S. follow through on a plan to impose duties on an additional $200 billion of Chinese goods, as early as next month. The Chinese duties ranging from 5 percent to 25 percent will be levied on 5,207 kinds of American imports, the Ministry of Finance said in a statement on its website. 
 
 The retaliation stands to further inflame tensions between the world’s two biggest economies. It echoes China’s response to the previous round of tariffs last month, when the U.S. and China imposed tariffs on $34 billion worth of each others’ goods. 
 
 Another $16 billion in U.S. levies on Chinese goods will likely follow in the coming days or weeks, which Beijing has said it will retaliate against in-kind. 
 
 These U.S. Products May Be Affected by China’s Proposed Tariffs 
 
 In addition, Trump this week ordered officials to consider imposing a 25 percent tax on $200 billion worth of imported Chinese goods, up from an initial 10 percent rate. The move was intended to bring China back to the negotiating table for talks over U.S. demands for structural changes to the Chinese economy and a cut in the bilateral trade deficit. Friday’s retaliation from China suggests that tactic hasn’t worked. 
 
 U.S. and Chinese officials have held “hardly any conversations” in the past month, but there’s “some hint” the Chinese may be warming to the idea of negotiations, Kudlow said. There’s recently been some communication at the highest levels, he told reporters outside the White House. 
 
 Three rounds of trade negotiations between senior U.S. and Chinese officials earlier this year centered on U.S. demands for China to make structural changes to its economy and to reduce its trade surplus with America. On Friday, U.S. data showed the merchandise trade gap with China slightly widened in June to $32.5 billion after May’s $32 billion. 
 
 Tariff Escalation 
 
 The U.S. tariffs now in place or threatened add up to almost half of the value of goods it imported from China last year. The Chinese side seem to be seeking to match that ratio with the new proposals. 
 
 Chinese authorities -- bracing for economic fallout -- have taken a range of measures in recent weeks to bolster the economy. On Friday officials stepped in to cushion the yuan, which has been battered by trade tensions and was approaching the key level of seven to the dollar. 
 
 Read more: China steps in to support its currency 
 
 The People’s Bank of China will impose a reserve requirement of 20 percent on some trading of foreign-exchange forward contracts, according to a statement on Friday evening. That will effectively make it more expensive to short the yuan, and is a tactic that the central bank used to stabilize the currency in the aftermath of its shock devaluation in 2015. 
 
 Kudlow said the weaker yuan indicates that investors have questions about the strength of China’s economy, adding a lack of intervention to prop up the yuan is helping cushion the impact of the trade war for China. A weaker currency usually makes exports more competitive. 
 
 “Some of the currency fall though, I think, is just money leaving China cause it’s a lousy investment and if that continues that will really damage the Chinese economy,” Kudlow said on Friday. 
 
 China is trying to seek an “equal” position in future talks with the U.S. with Friday’s retaliation announcement, said Gai Xinzhe, analyst at the Bank of China’s Institute of International Finance in Beijing. “Any talks in the future, should they happen, should be conducted on an equal and faithful basis.” 
 
 Beijing’s plans for tariffs on $60 billion of U.S. goods includes an additional 5 percent in duty on about 600 kinds of U.S. products including planes and computers; another 10 percent on almost 1,000 products including wigs and textiles; an extra 20 percent on more than 1,000 items including some chemicals, cookers and paper; and an additional 25 percent on over 2,400 products such as meat, wheat, wine and LNG. 
 
 "China’s differential tax rate countermeasures are rational and restrained," the Ministry of Commerce said in a separate statement on its website. "The implementation date will be subject to the actions of the U.S., and China reserves the right to continue introducing other countermeasures." 
 
 — With assistance by Xiaoqing Pi, Yinan Zhao, Kevin Hamlin, Miao Han, and Jonathan Ferro ||||| FILE- In this June 29, 2017, file photo containers are stacked up in Elizabeth, N.J., as a truck drives by at Port of Elizabeth. The U.S. has threatened to impose 25 percent duties on $34 billion in Chinese... (Associated Press) 
 
 FILE- In this June 29, 2017, file photo containers are stacked up in Elizabeth, N.J., as a truck drives by at Port of Elizabeth. The U.S. has threatened to impose 25 percent duties on $34 billion in Chinese products starting Friday, July 6, 2018, and China has said it will fire back with corresponding... (Associated Press) 
 
 WASHINGTON (AP) — The world's two biggest economies have fired the opening shots in a trade war that could have wide-ranging consequences for consumers, workers, companies, investors and political leaders. 
 
 With the United States slapping a 25 percent tax on $34 billion worth of Chinese imports starting Friday, China was set to hit back with taxes on an equal amount of U.S. products, including soybeans, lobsters, sport-utility vehicles and whiskey. 
 
 The United States accuses China of using predatory tactics in a push to supplant U.S. technological dominance. The tactics include forcing American companies to hand over technology in exchange for access to the Chinese market, as well as outright cyber-theft. Trump's tariffs are meant to pressure Beijing to reform its trade policies. 
 
 Though the first exchange of tariffs is unlikely to inflict much economic harm on either nation, the damage could soon escalate. President Donald Trump, who has boasted that winning a trade war will be easy, said Thursday that he's prepared to impose tariffs on up to $550 billion in Chinese imports — a figure that exceeds the $506 billion in goods that China actually shipped to the United States last year. 
 
 Escalating tariffs would likely raise prices for consumers, inflate costs for companies that rely on imported parts, rattle financial markets, cause some layoffs and slow business investment as executives wait to see whether the Trump administration can reach a truce with Beijing. The damage would threaten to undo many of the economic benefits of last year's tax cuts. 
 
 A full-fledged trade war, economists at Bank of America Merrill Lynch and elsewhere warn, risks tipping the U.S. economy into recession. 
 
 And those caught in the initial line of fire — U.S. farmers facing tariffs on their exports to China, for instance — are already hunkered down and fearing the worst. The price of U.S. soybeans has plunged 17 percent over the past month on fears that Chinese tariffs will cut off American farmers from a market that buys about 60 percent of their soybean exports. 
 
 "For soybean producers like me this is a direct financial hit," Brent Bible, a soy and corn producer in Romney, Indiana, said in a statement from the advocacy group Farmers for Free Trade. "This is money out of my pocket. These tariffs could mean the difference between a profit and a loss for an entire year's worth of work out in the field, and that's only in the near term." 
 
 Even before the first shots were fired, the prospect of a trade war was worrying investors. The Dow Jones industrial average has shed nearly 1,000 points since June 11. 
 
 The Chinese currency, the yuan, has dropped 3.5 percent against the U.S. dollar over the past month, giving Chinese companies a price edge over their U.S. competition. The drop might reflect a deliberate devaluation by the Chinese government to signal Beijing's "displeasure over the state of trade negotiations," according to a report Thursday from the Institute of International Finance, a banking trade group. 
 
 The Trump administration sought to limit the impact of the tariffs on U.S. households by targeting Chinese industrial goods, not consumer products, for the first round of tariffs. But that step drives up costs for U.S. companies that rely on Chinese-made machinery or components and may force them to pass them along to their business customers, and eventually to consumers. 
 
 If you like Chick-fil-A sandwiches, for instance, you may feel the impact of the tariffs. Charlie Souhrada, a vice president of the North American Food Equipment Manufacturers, says the duties could raise the cost of a pressure cooker made by one of its members, Henny Penny. Chick-fil-A uses the cooker for its sandwiches. The administration has placed "these import taxes squarely on the shoulders of manufacturers and by extension consumers," Souhrada said. 
 
 The Federal Reserve is already picking up signs that the threat of a trade war is causing businesses to rethink investment plans. In the minutes from its June 12-13 meeting, the Fed's policymaking committee noted: "Contacts in some districts indicated that plans for capital spending had been scaled back or postponed as a result of uncertainty over trade policy," 
 
 And if Trump extends the tariffs to $550 billion in Chinese imports there's no way consumers could avoid being caught in the crossfire: The taxes would have to hit consumer products like televisions and cellphones. 
 
 Consider what happened to the price of washing machines, that were subjected to a separate series of Trump tariffs in January. Over the past year, their price has surged more than 8 percent, compared with a slight drop in overall appliance prices. 
 
 Even the first round of tariffs means that "American consumers are one step closer to feeling the full effects of a trade war," said Matthew Shay, president of the National Retail Federation. 
 
 "These tariffs will do nothing to protect U.S. jobs, but they will undermine the benefits of tax reform and drive up prices for a wide range of products as diverse as tool sets, batteries, remote controls, flash drives and thermostats," Shay said. "And students could pay more for the mini-refrigerator they need in their dorm room as they head back to college this fall... a strategy based on unilateral tariffs is the wrong approach, and it has to stop." 
 
 ___ 
 
 AP Economics Writers Martin Crutsinger and Christopher Rugaber contributed to this story. ||||| China has announced plans to put tariffs of up to 25% on US products worth $60 billion, the latest salvo in an escalating trade war. 
 
 The Chinese government said Friday that it would impose duties of 25%, 20%, 10% and 5% on the products if the Trump administration follows through on threats to tax $200 billion of Chinese goods. 
 
 "In violation of the bilateral consensus reached after multiple rounds of negotiations, the United States has again unilaterally escalated trade frictions," the Chinese State Council Tariff Commission said in its statement on Friday. 
 
 China listed 5,207 US products that it would target in an effort to "safeguard its own legitimate interests." 
 
 Products in line for tariffs include meat, coffee, nuts, alcoholic drinks, minerals, chemicals, leather products, wood products, machinery, furniture and auto parts. 
 
 Related: The making of a global trade war 
 
 Sarah Sanders, the White House press secretary, said in a statement that "instead of retaliating, China should address the longstanding concerns about its unfair trading practices." 
 
 The United States and China trade goods and services worth about $650 billion each year, the largest trading relationship in the world between two countries. 
 
 But China exports far more to the United States than the other way round, making it more challenging for the country to hit back against US tariffs. 
 
 These new tariffs would affect about 38% of all American exports to China, which are worth about $170 billion in total. 
 
 Related: A brief history of the US-China trade war 
 
 Trade tensions between the United States and China have been on the rise since April 2017, when President Donald Trump directed the US Commerce Department to investigate whether imports of steel and aluminum from China and other countries threatened national security. 
 
 The investigation resulted in tariffs on steel and aluminum products from China and many other countries in March. Beijing responded with equal measures. 
 
 Then, in July, the United States imposed tariffs on $34 billion of Chinese goods to pressure the country into abandoning what the Trump administration describes as unfair practices such as stealing intellectual property. Beijing again responded with penalties of an equal scale, targeting American products such as motorcycles and communications satellites. 
 
 The most recent threat from the Trump administration came this week, when it warned that it could impose steeper tariffs than originally planned on another batch of imports from China. 
 
 The White House had previously asked the Office of the United States Trade Representative about the possibility of imposing a 10% tariff on $200 billion worth of Chinese goods. Under the new plan, tariffs of 25% would be applied. 
 
 Protectionist moves by the United States have drawn a response from other trading major partners. Canada, Mexico and the European Union have responded to US taxes on steel and aluminum with retaliatory tariffs. 
 
 -- Kaitlan Collins contributed reporting.
– The US in early July hit $34 billion of Chinese goods with an extra 25% tariff; China responded in kind. CNN reports round two could see the US slap tariffs on another $16 billion in goods as soon as this week, but it's a much bigger figure that's attracting attention Wednesday. Bloomberg cites sources who say the White House is thinking about upping the ante and imposing not an additional 10% tariff on $200 billion worth of Chinese goods but an additional 25%. CNN echoes that news via its source. Bloomberg frames the move, which would be revealed in the next couple of weeks, as intended to "force officials back to the negotiating table through threats of even higher tariffs"; the last high-level negotiations took place nearly two months ago. A Chinese foreign ministry rep responded to the news thusly, per the AP: "If the United States takes further measures that escalate the situation, China will definitely fight back. We are determined to safeguard our legitimate and lawful rights and interests."