A week after the United States and China began their trade war—announcing tariffs that cover hundreds of billions of dollars’ worth of goods—the Chinese embassy in Washington, D.C., has accused the U.S. of “slander” for saying China engages in unfair trade practices that harm Americans.
The embassy put forth this claim in a press release, in which it also blamed the exchange entirely on the U.S. and said a U.S.-China trade war will hurt the global economy.
“As a matter of fact, underlying problems in the American economy and society are purely caused by domestic, structural reasons in the U.S.,” not China’s actions, the release reads. “It is fair to say that this largest trade war in the economic history launched by the U.S. is not a trade war between the U.S. and China, but a global trade war. Such U.S. practices will drag the world economy into the ‘cold war trap,’ ‘recession trap,’ ‘anti-contract trap’ and ‘the trap of uncertainty.'”
Officials told the Wall Street Journal that no negotiations are planned between the two nations.
Whatever effect these tensions will have on the global economy, they’re expected to take a bite out of the U.S. gross domestic product, as Pacific Standard previously reported:
The full effects of a trade war are difficult to predict and depend heavily on the specifics of the initial and retaliatory tariffs imposed. But according to modeling from the Tax Foundation, a non-partisan research group, the tariffs already enacted by the Trump administration will reduce long-run gross domestic product (GDP) by 0.6 percent (approximately $15 billion), wages by 0.04 percent, and result in the elimination of over 48,000 full-time jobs.
If the Trump administration escalates the trade war (as it has threatened to do) and China and other countries retaliate (as they have threatened to do), the effects will grow.
Curious how continued tariffs will affect those numbers? The Tax Foundation promises to update its model results weekly to reflect the latest enacted and announced policies.
