Trade war

4 powerful weapons China has in its arsenal to win the US-China trade war

Last week, the U.S. fired the latest shot in its trade war with China, revealing a list of tariffs that it could slap on $200 billion worth of Chinese goods. While China has, to this point, been matching U.S. tariffs dollar-for-dollar – both countries instituted tariffs on $34-billion of items in June — if the U.S. forges ahead, China will have to use a different, and more damaging, set of weapons.

In theory, the U.S. could place tariffs on $505 billion worth of Chinese items, which is the total dollar value of goods imported from China into the U.S. in 2017. President Trump already said he's willing to put tariffs on all these goods should the need arise on Friday. China only imports $130 billion worth of U.S. goods, so there’s no way it can match President Trump’s latest tariff threat.