US President Trump approves $50 billion in tariffs on China - Wall Street Journal

As noted by the Wall Street Journal, US POTUS Donald Trump has approved tariffs on Chinese goods worth around $50 billion, and the US Treasury Department is expected to announce the tariffs formally tomorrow.

The US Treasury is expected to unveil the specific tariffs sometime on Friday, and the items on the tariff list are expected to be similar to the original list of items that the Treasury unveiled back in April.

Expectations are high that China would retaliate with haste, and the announcement of a 25% import fee on 50$ billion worth of Chinese goods will be met with stiff opposition from Chinese officials.

The approval followed a 90-minute meeting on Thursday of senior White House officials, national-security officials and senior representatives of the Treasury, Commerce Department, U.S. Trade Representative’s Office. It wasn’t clear when the tariffs would go into effect. Beijing has said that it intends to assess tariffs on a corresponding amount of U.S. goods.

On Thursday, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said China and the U.S. faced a choice between cooperation and mutual benefit on the one side and confrontation and mutual loss on the other. “China chooses the first,” Mr. Wang told a joint news conference, after talks with U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in Beijing. “We hope the U.S. side can also make the same wise choice,” Mr. Wang said. “Of course, we have also made preparations to respond to the second kind of choice.”

 - The Wall Street Journal