China dates back to Trump prices with calibrated measures, leaves room for negotiations

Shenzhen / Beijing: A few minutes after the pricing hikes by American president Donald Trump on Chinese goods launched on February 4, Beijing fired a series of full -fledged salvas: a basket of carefully designed measures that signals the resolution of China but leaves space for dialogue.

Unlike the United States, whose tax increases of 10% extend over all Chinese goods, Beijing movements target specific American exports and businesses that do business in China. They also tighten access to Chinese exports of critical minerals.

“The answer is well calibrated,” said Stephen Olson, a former American sales negotiator.

“Strong enough to attract Trump’s attention without being so damaging that it torpedoes the ability of the two countries to conclude a certain type of contract,” said the senior scholarship holder visiting the ISEAS – Yusof Ishak Institute in Straits Times.

China has announced 15% tariffs on American coal and liquefied natural gas (LNG) and 10% of raw oil tax increases, agricultural machines, vans and other goods. These must take effect on February 10.

Beijing’s countermeasures will not wear too heavy in the United States at the moment, analysts have noted.

“The Chinese imports of American fossil fuels, cars and agricultural equipment disguised in gas are insignificant,” said Erica Tay, director of the Macro-Recharter at Maybank, in St.

However, targeting by the energy sector by China would not go unnoticed by the American president, added others.

Olson said: “Trump plans the United States as an energy center, and they are all important export sectors.”

China has reserved its highest rates for LNG – of which the United States is the largest world exporter – as well as coal.

In addition to prices, China has also imposed export controls on critical minerals – of which it is a key producer or processor – many of which are used to produce high -tech products. His announcement on February 4, in force on the same day, did not explicitly mention the United States.

In addition, he has placed two American companies that do business in China on an “unreliable entity” list. The first, PVH, which has brands such as Calvin Klein and Tommy Hilfiger, has been the subject of an investigation since September 2024 for having allegedly boycotted cotton from the Xinjiang region in China. The second is the company of Biotechnology Illumina, which has offices in China and manufactures test reagents in Shanghai.

China has also announced that it would launch an anti-monopoly survey on Google. The company’s products, such as its search engine, are blocked in China, but it has offices in the country.

Google surveys would not become its activities, because these are only “surveys”, and taking into account its minimum presence in China, said Tay de Maybank.

But the company, alongside PVH and Illumina, adds to “a list of companies that can put pressure on Washington to negotiate with Beijing,” she added.

Professor Wu Xinbo, dean of the Institute of International Studies of Fudan University in Shanghai, said that with these “firm countermeasures”, the message of Beijing was clear.

“China does not accept American” explosions “or pressure tactics,” he told St.

China’s actions aimed not to degenerate the confrontation, he added, but to make people understand in the United States that “the problems between the two countries should be resolved by dialogue and consultations, rather than a unreasonable pressure or unilateral coercion ”.

Although China did not go with firearms in its response to the United States, it did not immediately offer concessions.

The leaders of Canada and Mexico – who were initially faced with prices of 25% of the United States in force from February 4 – negotiated a 30 -day stay in exchange for concessions on borders and the application of Crime via telephone calls with Trump. This came after the two countries previously announced that they would retaliate against American prices.

No call of this type took place between Chinese President Xi Jinping and Trump before the tax increases were triggered, but the White House reported that we were to come.

He said on February 3 that Trump could speak to Xi on the phone in “The next few days”. They spoke for the last time on January 17, before Trump took up his duties.

China, which concluded a Chinese Chinese New Year celebration on February 4, has not commented a possible telephone call.

Olson, the former American commercial negotiator, considers China’s response as a “shot across the arc” which was probably intended to give Xi more lever in talks with Trump.

Some analysts consider the United States and reprisals of China as opening salvan in what could turn into a larger trade war.

Trump described his own actions as such on February 3, adding that in less than China still discovers the fentanyl flow – the main cause of drug overdoses in the United States – “prices will go much more”.

In response, China has said that fentanyl is the problem of America and that it would dispute the prices by bringing a case to the World Trade Organization (WTO). He announced on February 4 that he had filed a complaint with the World Organization.

This decision “will have no real impact,” said law professor Henry Gao of Singapore Management University, who is an expert in the world organization.

Indeed, the United States has paralyzed the capacity of the WTO since 2019 to make decisions on enforceable trade disputes by blocking the appointment of new judges to its appeal body.

Deputy Professor Dylan Loh, a Chinese expert in foreign policy at Nanyang Technological University, said: “There is certainly more (than China) could do, but they would not want to show all their cards now.”

China’s current response “allows the two countries to have a ramp out of ramp and keep the prices imposed on each other,” he added.

For the moment, observers are looking closely at how negotiations between the two biggest economies in the world will take place.

From China’s response, Tay de Maybank said: “The message is clear: let’s talk.” – The Straits Times / Ann