China announces additional 25% tariff on $16 billion worth of U.S. goods

Shanghai (Gasgoo)- The Chinese government said on August 8 that it will impose additional 25% import tariffs on $ 16 billion worth of U.S.-made goods, including automobile and energy products, to retaliate for the Donald Trump administration's latest import duties levied on an equivalent value of China-made goods. The newly-launched policy will officially take into effect on Aug 23, 2018.

In June, China's custom authority unveiled a list of products from the U.S. worth $ 50 billion that will be imposed additional tariffs in response to the U.S. announcement to collect additional tariffs on Chinese imports. The first part of the tariff policy, involving $34 billion worth of products, had officially come into force on July 6.

The list of U.S.-made imported products affected by the tax change covers 333 items in total, involving a wide range of auto segments, such as passenger vehicle (PV), commercial vehicle (CV), traditional fossil fuel-power vehicle, and new energy vehicle (NEV).

On April 17, Chinese authority announced that the country will remove foreign ownership caps on companies making full electric and plug-in hybrid vehicles in 2018, commercial-vehicle companies in 2020 and the wider passenger vehicle market by 2022.

Then, the government claimed on May 22 that it will reduce the import tariffs on complete vehicles and auto parts from July 1. Specifically, 135 tariff items whose tax rates stand at 25% and 4 tariff items whose tax rates stand at 20% will be reduced to 15%. As to auto parts, a total of 79 tariff items with tax rates standing at 8%, 10%, 15%, 20% and 25% respectively will be decreased to 6%. The tax rates on U.S.-made PVs will be hiked to around 65% after August 23.