Chinese measures won’t take effect until Feb. 10, leaving Donald Trump and Xi Jinping time to defuse their growing trade war.
Beijing struck back on Tuesday after U.S. President Donald Trump imposed 10 percent tariffs against China, announcing levies of 15 percent on U.S. liquefied natural gas and coal, and 10 percent on crude oil, farm equipment and some autos.
Beijing also set further export controls on rare metals, and announced an anti-monopoly investigation into Google, the search engine owned by Alphabet, and a number of other U.S. companies.
The Chinese measures will take effect on Feb. 10, leaving time for Trump to talk to President Xi Jinping about how to avoid further trade escalation. The U.S. president on Monday suspended higher tariffs against Canada and Mexico for 30 days after Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and President Claudia Sheinbaum pledged action to shore up U.S. border security.
While the U.S has applied tariffs across the board for Chinese goods, China’s response was cautious in comparison, only applying levies to specific imports.
Beijing also filed a complaint to the World Trade Organization (WTO), invoking its dispute settlement procedure.
“The U.S.’s unilateral imposition of tariffs seriously violates the rules of the World Trade Organization,” read a statement from the finance ministry. “It is not only unhelpful in solving its own problems, but also damages the normal economic and trade cooperation between China and the U.S.”
Trump told reporters in the Oval Office on Monday that his trading partners want to avoid U.S. tariffs, and “in all cases, they all want to make deals.”