BEIJING (Reuters) - Chinese buyers of U.S. ethanol will have to cut imports because of higher tariffs, but eventually will have to return to the overseas market to meet government targets for using the fuel, industry participants and analysts said on Monday.

China said late on Sunday it will slap an extra 15 percent tariff on ethanol imports from the United States, part of its response to U.S. duties on aluminum and steel imports. The previous duty was 30 percent.

The tariffs, effective Monday, will neutralize cost savings from importing cheaper U.S. ethanol versus domestic supply, said three sources that participate in the market. Ethanol, an alcohol typically produced from corn or sugar, is often mixed with gasoline to reduce air pollution from vehicle emissions.

“The price difference is gone. We will suspend imports for now,” said a manager at a private oil refinery, adding that he was considering turning to domestic suppliers for ethanol to blend into gasoline.

That is good news for domestic producers, who are already ramping up output on cheaper corn and government subsidies.

“We have so much corn. We will do absolutely fine if we don’t import ethanol,” said a manager at a major ethanol producer in China.

But analysts said China will probably need to resume imports to meet the government target of 10 percent ethanol content in all gasoline nationwide by 2020.

“Demand for fuel ethanol will potentially explode in 2019 and 2020 and we won’t have enough domestic supplies by then. We might have to turn to overseas,” said Michael Mao, an analyst with Zhuochuang, a commodities consultancy based in the Chinese province of Shandong.

China said last year the new ethanol mandate would boost industrial demand for corn and help clean up its choking smog. It would mean consumption of around 15 million tonnes of ethanol annually, made from 45 million tonnes of corn, according to Reuters calculations.

It is not clear where future imports will come from. A 30 percent duty on ethanol imports previously levied since January 2017 had already slowed a once-booming trade to a trickle. <ETH/CN>

U.S. imports had recently picked up after prices fell enough to be attractive even with the high duties.

But the new tariffs will close the arbitrage again, boosting the price of U.S. ethanol to around 6,300 yuan ($1,003.58) per tonne after taxes, on par with domestic prices, market sources said.

“There’s not a lot booked past May now and there’s a fear they are not going to book anything forward,” a U.S. ethanol trader said of China.

Chicago Board of Trade May ethanol futures 1ZEK8 fell 2.5 percent or about 4 cents to $1.44 per gallon, the lowest since Feb. 9, as trade resumed after the tariff announcement.

The refinery manager said prices in Brazil, the world’s top ethanol producer, are currently too high for exports to China, but could be an option in future.</s>NEW YORK (Reuters) - The dollar slid on Monday as China raised tariffs on U.S. goods in an escalating spat between the world’s two biggest economies while stocks on Wall Street tumbled, led by a rout in technology shares, after President Donald Trump again attacked Amazon.com.

China bumped up tariffs by as much as 25 percent on 128 U.S. products, from frozen pork and wine to fruits and nuts, in response to U.S. duties on imports of aluminum and steel.

Gold snapped a three-session losing streak and the dollar fell after the tariffs, which are due to take effect on Monday, were announced late Sunday by China’s finance ministry.

The three major U.S. stock indexes fell more than 2 percent each as the rout wiped out the tech-heavy Nasdaq index’s gains for the year and sent the benchmark S&P 500 crashing through its 200-day moving average, a closely watched technical indicator.

It was the first time the index closed below its 200-day moving average since June 2016 in the wake of Britain’s decision to leave the European Union, known as Brexit.

Trading was light as major European markets closed for Easter Monday. Markets in Australia and Hong Kong also were shut.

Shares of Amazon, Microsoft, Intel and Facebook were the biggest drag on MSCI’s all-country world stock index, which fell 1.23 percent.

The four companies also were the biggest weights on the benchmark S&P 500 index as it broke through its 200-day moving average after threatening to do so the past five sessions.

“It’s a technical breakdown. A house catches on fire, it burns rather quickly and that is what is happening now,” said Peter Cardillo, chief market economist at First Standard Financial in New York.

“Until we get to the earnings season, this market is going to shed more pain,” he said, referring to first-quarter corporate results that will begin in earnest in two weeks.

Nicholas Colas, co-founder of Datatrek Research in New York, said there was a “reset” on how much exposure to technology shares investors are willing to bear.

“This is still primarily a tech-led sell-off and what we’ve learned over the past two weeks is just how overweight investors were in technology,” Colas said.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed down 458.92 points, or 1.9 percent, to 23,644.19. The S&P 500 lost 58.99 points, or 2.23 percent, to 2,581.88 and the Nasdaq Composite dropped 193.33 points, or 2.74 percent, to 6,870.12.

The Dow is now down 4.4 percent for the year, the S&P 500 is off 3.4 percent and the Nasdaq 0.48 percent.

The tariff announcement from China was not new and was not bearish but is an ongoing uncertainty, said Thomas Martin, senior portfolio manager at Globalt Investments in Atlanta.

“What you’re seeing in the market is a change in leadership,” he said.

Trump’s comments on Amazon weighed on equities but further news on U.S.-China trade expected this week has drawn investor interest, said Jeffrey Kleintop, chief global investment strategist at Charles Schwab & Co Inc in Boston.

“Everybody is bracing for that,” Kleintop said of expected U.S. tariffs on $50 billion to $60 billion a year of imports from China that will likely intensify U.S.-China tensions.

The Trump administration will unveil by Friday a list of advanced technology Chinese imports targeted for U.S. tariffs to punish Beijing over technology transfer policies.

Amazon’s stock fell 5.2 percent after Trump attacked the online retailer over the pricing of its deliveries through the U.S. postal system and promised unspecified changes.

“Only fools, or worse, are saying that our money-losing Post Office makes money with Amazon,” Trump tweeted.

Intel shares closed down 6.1 percent after Bloomberg reported Apple is planning to use its own chips in Mac computers beginning in 2020.

The dollar fell for a second straight session.

The dollar index fell 0.13 percent, with the euro down 0.16 percent to $1.2301. The Japanese yen firmed 0.31 percent versus the greenback at 105.94 per dollar.

Oil fell more than 2 percent, pressured by a rise in Russian production, expectations that Saudi Arabia will cut prices of the crude it sends to Asia, and a deepening trade spat between China and the United States.

Brent crude fell $1.70 to settle $67.64 a barrel. U.S. crude settled down $1.93 at $63.01.

U.S. drillers cut seven oil rigs in the week to March 29, bringing the total down to 797, the first decline in three weeks. The rig count is closely watched as an indicator of future U.S. oil output.

U.S. Treasury prices rose, with benchmark 10-year notes up 1/32 in price, pushing yields down to 2.7407 percent.

Gold, which is often seen as a store of value during times of financial or political uncertainty, rose.

U.S. gold futures for June delivery settled up</s>WASHINGTON – First, the United States imposed a tax on Chinese steel and aluminum. Then, China counterpunched Monday with tariffs on a host of U.S. products, including apples, pork and ginseng.

On Wall Street, the stock market buckled on the prospect of an all-out trade war between the world’s two biggest economies. But it hasn’t come to that — not yet, anyway.

“We’re in a trade slap-fight right now,” not a trade war, said Derek Scissors, resident scholar and China specialist at the conservative American Enterprise Institute.

China is a relatively insignificant supplier of steel and aluminum to the United States. And the $3 billion in U.S. products that Beijing targeted Monday amount to barely 2 per cent of American goods exported to China.

But the dispute could escalate, and quickly. Already, in a separate move, the United States is drawing up a list of about $50 billion in Chinese imports to tax in an effort to punish Beijing for stealing American technology or forcing U.S. companies to hand over trade secrets.

China could respond by targeting American commercial interests uniquely dependent on the Chinese market: the aircraft giant Boeing, for example, and soybean farmers.

The possibility that the U.S. and China will descend into a full-blown trade war knocked more than 600 points off the Dow Jones industrial average by late afternoon Monday. Boeing was off nearly 3 per cent. For weeks, in fact, President Donald Trump’s aggressive trade actions have depressed the stock market.

But many trade analysts suggested that the Wall Street sell-off may be an overreaction.

China’s swift but measured retaliation to the U.S. steel and aluminum tariffs is meant to show “that it will not be pushed around but that it does not want a trade war,” said Amanda DeBusk, chair of the international trade department at the law firm Hughes Hubbard & Reed. “It is possible for the countries to pull back from the brink.”

“It seems to be pretty measured and proportional,” agreed Wendy Cutler, a former U.S. trade official who is now vice-president at the Asia Society Policy Institute. “They didn’t seem to overreach, and they didn’t hit our big-ticket items like planes and soybeans.”

Even if China’s tariffs don’t have a huge impact on America’s $20 trillion economy, they will bring pain to specific communities.

Take Marathon County in Wisconsin, where 140 local families grow ginseng, a root that is used in herbal remedies and is popular in Asia. Around $30 million — or 85 per cent — of the area’s ginseng production went to China as exports or gifts. The county, which gave Trump nearly 57 per cent of its vote in 2016, holds an international ginseng festival in September, crowning a Ginseng Queen and drawing visitors from China and Taiwan.

China’s new 15 per cent tariff on ginseng is “definitely going to hit the growers hard if this happens,” said Jackie Fett, executive director of the Ginseng Board of Wisconsin. “It is the livelihood of many people. … We’re still holding on to a little bit of hope” that the tariffs can be reversed.

Jim Schumacher, co-owner of Schumacher Ginseng in Marathon, Wisconsin, said the 15 per cent tax will hurt: “You’ve got to be price-competitive, even if you have the top-quality product. We’re definitely concerned. We hope something can be resolved.”

Trump campaigned on a promise to overhaul American trade policy. In his view, what he calls flawed trade agreements and sharp-elbowed practices by China and other trading partners are in part responsible for America’s gaping trade deficit — $566 billion last year. The deficit in the trade of goods with China last year hit a record $375 billion.

In his first year in office, Trump’s talk was tougher than his actions on trade. But he has gradually grown more aggressive. In January, he slapped tariffs on imported solar panels and washing machines. Last month, he imposed duties on steel and aluminum imports — but spared most major economies except China and Japan.

Now he is moving toward steep tariffs to pressure Beijing into treating U.S. technology companies more fairly. In the meantime, his administration has lost two voices that cautioned against protectionist trade policies: Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and White House economic adviser Gary Cohn.

“Given the increasingly hostile rhetoric backed up by tangible trade sanctions already announced by both the U.S. and China, it will take a determined effort on both sides to come up with a mediated compromise that tamps down trade tensions and allows both sides to save face,” said Eswar Prasad, professor of trade policy at Cornell University.

If the dispute escalates, China can pick more vulnerable targets. In the year that ended last Aug. 31, America’s soybean farmers, for instance, sent $12.4 billion worth of soybeans to China. That was 57 per cent of total U.S. soybean exports.

Brent Bible, a soybean and corn farmer in Lafayette, Indiana, has appeared in TV ads by the advocacy group Farmers for Free Trade, calling on the Trump administration to avoid a trade war.

“We’re kind of caught in the crossfire,” he said.

AP Writers Marcy Gordon in Washington and Doug Glass in Minneapolis contributed to this report.</s>China slapped tariffs on up to $3 billion in U.S. exports over the weekend, escalating a trade spat between the world’s two largest economies.

Announced late Sunday, the tariffs will apply to 128 American products that Beijing had previously identified as potential targets for import taxes. The punitive measures went into effect on Monday, the Chinese government said.

Beijing says the tariffs are a response to President Donald Trump’s tariffs on steel and aluminum imports from China and other countries. Last month, Trump invoked a provision of U.S. trade law to place a 25 percent tariff on foreign-made steel and 10 percent on aluminum to protect American “national economic and security.”

Then, on March 22, Trump announced his intention to impose around $60 billion in trade penalties on China for intellectual property theft.

Those sanctions, which are likely to hit Chinese aerospace, technology and machinery industries, will not take effect until after a 30-day public review period, according to the White House.

The Chinese tariffs announced Sunday will apply a 15 percent duty on 120 American products such as fruits, nuts and wine, and 25 percent on eight other products, including pork and recycled aluminum. Beijing expects the retaliatory measures to affect about $3 billion worth of goods, less than one percent of U.S. exports to China.

Since first announcing the metal tariffs last month, the White House has said it will give exceptions to several trading partners, including Canada, Mexico, South Korea and the European Union.

China has accused the Trump administration of violating global trade rules by invoking national security to place tariffs on Chinese goods, but not imports from other countries.

In a statement late Sunday, China’s Ministry of Commerce said that those exemptions “seriously violate” World Trade Organization rules against trade discrimination among member nations.

China’s official news agency, Xinhua, warned that Trump’s plan to impose additional punitive measures are a “self-defeating gamble.”

“Trump’s planned tariffs are not only going to hamper the United States’ economic well-being and continued progress, and burden its people with higher costs of living, but also pose a grave threat to the current global trading system,” Xinhua said, according to CNN.

Chinese trade practices have long been a sore spot for Trump, who has accused Beijing of undermining American producers through intellectual property theft and dumping cheap steel and other products in the U.S. market.

Trump said last month he intends to pressure Beijing to develop a plan that would reduce the U.S. trade deficit with China by $100 billion.

China reported a trade surplus of $275.8 billion with the United States last year — about two-thirds of its global total, according to CNBC.

Using its own metrics, the U.S. government reported a trade gap of $375.2 billion, the largest ever.

A version of this article appeared on The Daily Caller News Foundation website.

What do you think? Scroll down to comment below.</s>BEIJING, April 2 (Reuters) - Chinese buyers of U.S. ethanol will have to cut imports because of higher tariffs, but eventually will have to return to the overseas market to meet government targets for using the fuel, industry participants and analysts said on Monday.

China said late on Sunday it will slap an extra 15 percent tariff on ethanol imports from the United States, part of its response to U.S. duties on aluminium and steel imports. The previous duty was 30 percent.

The tariffs, effective Monday, will neutralize cost savings from importing cheaper U.S. ethanol versus domestic supply, said three sources that participate in the market. Ethanol, an alcohol typically produced from corn or sugar, is often mixed with gasoline to reduce air pollution from vehicle emissions.

“The price difference is gone. We will suspend imports for now,” said a manager at a private oil refinery, adding that he was considering turning to domestic suppliers for ethanol to blend into gasoline.

That is good news for domestic producers, who are already ramping up output on cheaper corn and government subsidies.

“We have so much corn. We will do absolutely fine if we don’t import ethanol,” said a manager at a major ethanol producer in China.

But analysts said China will probably need to resume imports to meet the government target of 10 percent ethanol content in all gasoline nationwide by 2020.

“Demand for fuel ethanol will potentially explode in 2019 and 2020 and we won’t have enough domestic supplies by then. We might have to turn to overseas,” said Michael Mao, an analyst with Zhuochuang, a commodities consultancy based in the Chinese province of Shandong.

China said last year the new ethanol mandate would boost industrial demand for corn and help clean up its choking smog. It would mean consumption of around 15 million tonnes of ethanol annually, made from 45 million tonnes of corn, according to Reuters calculations.

It is not clear where future imports will come from. A 30 percent duty on ethanol imports previously levied since January 2017 had already slowed a once-booming trade to a trickle.

U.S. imports had recently picked up after prices fell enough to be attractive even with the high duties.

But the new tariffs will close the arbitrage again, boosting the price of U.S. ethanol to around 6,300 yuan ($1,003.58) per tonne after taxes, on par with domestic prices, market sources said.

“There’s not a lot booked past May now and there’s a fear they are not going to book anything forward,” a U.S. ethanol trader said of China.

Chicago Board of Trade May ethanol futures fell 2.5 percent or about 4 cents to $1.44 per gallon, the lowest since Feb. 9, as trade resumed after the tariff announcement.

The refinery manager said prices in Brazil, the world’s top ethanol producer, are currently too high for exports to China, but could be an option in future. ($1 = 6.2775 Chinese yuan renminbi) (Reporting by Hallie Gu and Dominique Patton; Additional reporting by Michael Hirtzer in Chicago; Editing by Christian Schmollinger and David Gregorio)</s>The Chinese government said that tariffs on about $3 billion worth of US imports are going into effect Monday. The tariffs will hit 128 products ranging from pork to steel pipes.

Related: China hits the United States with tariffs on $3 billion of exports

The sanctions are in response to President Donald Trump’s tariffs on imports of steel and aluminum from China and several other countries.

China will put 15% tariffs on American cherries, almonds, wine, ethanol and steel pipes, and 25% on pork meat and recycled aluminum.

Related: Apples and cherries are at stake in China trade fight

Trump has also announced separately that he would impose tariffs on $50 billion worth of imports to punish China for stealing American tech and trade secrets.

The US Department of Agriculture provided CNNMoney with 2017 export values for many of those products that China would target to retaliate for the steel and aluminum tariffs. The data was compiled by the Census Bureau and is categorized by federal commodity and shipping standards.

Fruit: $260.1 million exported to China, 6% of all US fruit exports

Cherries: $121.7 million

 Oranges: $48.5 million

 Grapes (fresh): $22.2 million

 Grapes (dried): $18.9 million

 Apples (fresh): $18.4 million

 Apricots (fresh): $5.5 million

 Plums: $5.1 million

 Prunes (dried): $4.5 million

 Strawberries: $3 million

 Fruit and nuts: $2.3 million

 Lemons and limes (fresh and dried): $1.3 million

 Sour cherries: $1.3 million

 Pears (fresh): $744,000

 Figs: $457,000

 Citrus fruits (fresh): $373,000

 Grapefruit: $361,000

 Cranberries: $232,000

 Apples (dried): $136,000

 Mandarins: $93,000

 Peaches and nectarines: $56,000

 Wilkings: $33,000

Wine: $74.6 million of wine exported to China, 5% of all US wine exports

Grape wines (in containers holding 2 liters or less): $67.6 million

 Grape wines (in containers holding 2-10 liters): $3.7 million

 Grape wines (in containers holding more than 10 liters): $2.1 million

 Grape wine (unfermented): $674,000

 Grape wines (sparkling): $526,000

Pork: $487.9 million exported to China, 9% of all US pork exports

Swine offal (frozen): $250.6 million

 Swine cuts (frozen): $166 million

 Swine hams (frozen): $69.4 million

 Swine carcasses (frozen): $1.3 million

 Swine cuts (fresh or chilled): $286,000

 Swine hams (fresh or chilled): $147,000

 Swine livers (frozen): 0

 Swine carcasses (fresh or chilled): 0

Nuts: $224.9 million exported to China, 3% of all US nuts exports

Pistachios (in shell): $37.9 million

 Nuts Nesoi: $35.8 million

 Almonds (in shell): $24.3 million

 Walnuts (no shell): $16.8 million

 Walnuts (in shell): $15.5 million

 Macadamia nuts (in shell): $9.4 million

 Macadamia nuts (shelled): $76,000

 Mixtures of nuts: $5.4 million

 Almonds (no shell): $4.9 million

 Hazelnuts (in shell): $2 million

 Pistachios (shelled): $1.9 million

 Cashew nuts (without the shell): $962,000

 Cashew nuts (in shell): $9,000

 Coconuts (in shell): $3,000

 Brazil nuts: 0

 Coconuts dessicated: 0

Ginseng: $22.6 million exported to China, 40% of all US ginseng exports

Ethanol alcohol: $32.2 million exported to China, 3% of all US ethanol alcohol exports</s>China warned Tuesday that it will respond to any U.S. trade penalties with countermeasures of the same scale and intensity.

President Donald Trump has threatened to punish China for intellectual property theft and forced technology transfers with around $60 billion in trade tariffs on Chinese goods.

“If they do (impose new tariffs) we will certainly take countermeasures of the same proportion and of the same scale, same intensity,” Chinese Ambassador to the U.S. Cui Tiankai told Chinese state-run broadcaster CCTV Tuesday, according to The South China Morning Post.

Intellectual property theft is a problem the Trump administration estimates cost the U.S. hundreds of billions of dollars a year, and China is regarded as the worst offender.

Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross has accused China of attacking American genius.

China’s latest threat follows a move Monday to impose roughly $3 billion in tariffs on 128 American products in response to the president’s hard-hitting steel and aluminum tariffs.

Beijing has placed a 15 percent tariff on 120 products like fruits, nuts, and wine and a 25 percent on eight additional products, such as pork and recycled aluminum.

It is unclear exactly how China intends to respond to the new trade penalties, but some observers suspect that Beijing may target the $250 billion in deals Chinese President Xi Jinping and Trump negotiated during the latter’s visit to China in November.

Former Chinese finance minister Lou Jiwei has suggested that Beijing may target soybeans.

China could also put the squeeze on American companies like Boeing, Apple and Intel.

China has repeatedly stated that it is not interested in a trade war, but it has also stressed that it will not lose should Washington decide to start one.

“We will fight to the end,” the Chinese Embassy in the U.S. said in a recent statement in response to the president’s trade tariffs. The Chinese foreign ministry reiterated this point Tuesday.

“The US has a list. China also will have a list,” Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Geng Shuang told reporters.

RELATED: China Strikes Back With Tariffs on $3 Billion in US Exports

Beijing hopes “to resolve the differences in trade with the United States through dialogue and consultation,” he added.

The Trump administration has argued that a trade war is not the desired outcome, but it has asserted that the U.S. will continue to press China for free and fair trade, as well as efforts to decrease the massive $375 billion trade deficit.

A version of this article appeared on The Daily Caller News Foundation website.

What do you think? Scroll down to comment below.</s>Image copyright Getty Images Image caption US pork products are among those affected by new tariffs imposed by China

The White House has criticised China after it imposed retaliatory tariffs against the US on a range of goods, including pork and wine.

Beijing put duties of up to 25% on 128 American imports following President Donald Trump's decision to slap taxes on imports of steel and aluminium.

China said the move was intended to safeguard its interests and balance losses caused by the new tariffs.

US stocks fell sharply and Asia traded generally lower, amid trade war fears.

On Wall Street, the S&P 500 Index lost 2.2%, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 1.9%.

In Asia, Japan's Nikkei 225 opened down about 1.5% on Tuesday but recovered a little to close 0.45% lower. The Shanghai Composite closed down even further, dropping 0.84%, although Hong Kong's Hang Seng bucked the trend, reversing earlier losses to finish up 0.29%.

The White House reacted angrily to China's move.

"Instead of targeting fairly traded US exports, China needs to stop its unfair trading practices which are harming US national security and distorting global markets," spokeswoman Lindsay Walters said.

She added; "China's subsidisation and continued overcapacity is the root cause of the steel crises,"

The back-and-forth reflects rising tensions between the US and China, which President Trump has described as an "economic enemy".

What is this fight about?

The US has taken two major steps on tariffs recently that have triggered tension with China, the first on steel and aluminium and the second on intellectual property.

The global steel and aluminium tariffs were announced on 8 March. The US is using national security laws to impose the tariffs, which it says are needed to protect US producers.

Certain allies such as Canada, Mexico and the European Union are in line for exemptions, pending talks.

Image copyright EPA Image caption Donald Trump has vowed to cut the US trade deficit with China

China has challenged the US use of national security laws and announced retaliatory tariffs on $3bn (£2.1bn) worth of US products.

Those tariffs went into effect on Monday, targeting US goods including frozen pork, nuts, fresh and dried fruit, ginseng and wine.

The US tariffs related to intellectual property are expected to be set out this week.

They stem from a US investigation into the alleged theft of intellectual property and Beijing's "Made in China 2025" programme, which the US says puts its firms at a disadvantage and unfairly pressures them to share technology, especially in fields such as robotics and telecommunications.

Up to $60bn in tariffs could be imposed on Chinese imports.

China's ambassador to the US, Cui Tiankai, warned Beijing would take counter-measures of "the same proportion".

Who will blink first?

By Stephen McDonell, BBC News, Hong Kong

China's theft of foreign intellectual property is what sparked all this in the first place, according to Washington. If international companies want to operate in China they must hand over their intellectual property for the privilege, thus delivering the likes of German high-speed rail technology into the hands of Chinese engineers.

Yet now that China's retaliatory tariffs have kicked in, there are also those sympathetic with that argument who are worried that launching a potential tariff war is not the way to fix the problem. Naturally others say China has been getting away with this for years and tough measures were needed in order to force change.

There is also the overall imbalance in US-China trade but a large Chinese surplus, of course, means it is potentially much more exposed during a trade war than America. For this reason Beijing will want to negotiate a way out of this escalating tariff showdown.

Its first set of tariffs are relatively mild but they come in response to the first round of US tariffs and a second has already been announced. There are plenty more American companies to be hit and other nations, especially those in Europe and Asia, could soon find themselves dragged into this conflict.

How have producers reacted?

American businesses caught up in the dispute have raised alarms, noting that China is a large market for certain goods, including pork, soya beans and aircraft.

For example, last year China was the third largest market for US pork, receiving about $1.1bn worth of products, according to the National Pork Producer Council.

"Any restriction on export markets is not a good development for US pork producers," Jim Monroe, a spokesman for the National Pork Producers Council, told the BBC.

US companies have said that while they share some of the Trump administration's concerns, they are worried that threatening tariffs is not the best way to resolve the problems.

"The direction of what the US government is doing, and that is to apply some pressure, use some leverage, to level the playing field is the right one, although I don't think tariffs is the best way to go," said William Zarit. chairman of the American Chamber of Commerce in China.

Mr Zarit told the BBC that members of his organisation, which represents more than 900 companies operating across China, including Intel, Dell, Honeywell and Coca-Cola, were encouraged to hear that top officials have started talking again.

"I think it shows that both sides want to solve this before it gets out of hand," he said.</s>On Monday, China hit back at the Trump administration’s decision to raise duties on steel and aluminum imports, imposing tariffs of up to 25% on 128 American goods — including pork, wine and fruit — worth an estimated $3 billion.

Beijing said the hike was intended to “safeguard China’s interests and balance” losses caused by the new 25% tariff on steel imports and 10% on aluminum that Washington imposed from March 23, citing “national security.” President Trump has stated that trade wars are “good” and “easy to win,” while common consensus among economists is that all parties lose.

Beijing’s strident state media has praised the retaliation. A Global Times editorial described the tit-for-tat as “now an unofficial trade war.”

“It is time for Washington to bid farewell to the fantasy it has long been living in, a delusional world of make-believe whereby it imagines China as an unresponsive nation and tolerant toward U.S. tariffs,” it added.

For now, the dispute doesn’t appear to be spiraling, though that could change if the White House follows through with recent threats of an additional $60 billion of tariffs related to alleged Intellectual Property (IP) theft.

“If this is a Jujitsu match, I haven’t seen any major moves yet,” says Jeffrey Towson, a private-equity investor and a professor of investment at Peking University in Beijing. “This looks like grappling to me, but nobody’s choking each other out.”

Still, if this turns into a street brawl, China knows how to fight dirty — and frequently does. The Beijing government has a record of slapping tariffs on nations for political or retaliatory purposes. Moreover, China doesn’t even have to take explicit action to hurt other nations in the pocket — its people can do that themselves.

One of the biggest weapons Beijing wields is popular nationalism, which often works in cahoots with government coercion. Last year, China targeted South Korea’s economy in response to Seoul’s decision to host the U.S. THAAD missile defense system, which Beijing deems an affront. According to South Korea’s National Assembly’s Budget Office, a tourism boycott alone saw Chinese arrivals drop 67% and cost the South Korean economy $6.8 billion.

In addition, department stores run by South Korean conglomerate Lotte — which owns the land where THAAD was deployed — were forced to close in China on dubious “fire safety” grounds. Sales of Hyuandi and Samsung products also suffered. In fact, there were 43 cases of retaliation in the six months to last February, according to Korean news agency Yonhap.

Economic warfare will often spring organically. In 2008, Chinese nationalists urged a boycott against French supermarket chain Carrefour after Tibetan independence advocates protested the Olympic torch’s route through Paris. In 2010, by contrast, China declared an official boycott against Norwegian salmon exports after the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo. Philippine banana imports were also banned over territorial disputes between Beijing and Manila in the South China Sea.

Read more: How China Could Use ‘America First’ to Its Advantage

Japan is frequently targeted owning to territorial disputes in the East China Sea and historical grievances over abuses during Japanese occupation of China, with periodic boycotts of celebrated auto and electronics brands, such as Honda, Toyota and Sony. And the U.S. was even targeted in 2016 over a July 12 ruling by an international tribunal that rejected China’s historic claims to the South China Sea. Protesters targeted certain iconic American symbols — KFC and McDonalds — but were dispersed by police.

While such actions can be organic, they rarely gather steam without official backing, and it seems that the Beijing government never felt fully comfortable with officially sanctioning anti-American action. But judging by the increasingly jingoistic language of China’s state press, and how maoyi zhan, or “trade war,” is increasingly part of the everyday lexicon, that may soon change.

Worryingly for American firms, China not only represents a large chunk of current foreign earnings but also represents a key sector for future growth. Apple, the world’s most valuable firm, earned $17.9 billion in Greater China in the last quarter of 2017 — about 20% of global revenue. Trump has accused China of unfair trade practices that led 60,000 American factories to close at a loss of 6 million jobs. But the U.S. has never felt the devastation wrought by 1.3 billion angry Chinese consumers.

“We’ve never seen a Pan-American boycott like we’ve seen for other countries,” says Towson. “I’m curious if we will now.”</s>China is moving forward with retaliatory tariffs on U.S. products, including the 25 percent tariff on U.S. pork. China’s Ministry of Finance announced Sunday it will suspend duty reductions on select imported goods from the United States.

In the announcement, China says the Trump administration’s steel and aluminum imports to the U.S. violate World Trade Organization rules, and “did not comply with the security exceptions provision.” China alleges the move by trump caused “serious damage” to China’s interests. China is targeting U.S. items, including fruits, along with the 25 percent tariff on U.S. pork.

China says the nation is using its action as a method to “safeguard its interest,” as allowed by WTO rules. Last week, China’s Ministry of Finance said the action by the U.S. had “severely damaged” the multilateral trade system. China also made a World Trade Organization filing last week to seek consultations regarding the issue.
The White House criticizes China's decision to place tariffs of up to 25% on 128 U.S. imports including pork and wine which was in retaliation to U.S. President Donald Trump's decision to introduce tariffs on Chinese steel and aluminium imports.