Beijing has retaliated against Donald Trump’s tariffs on Chinese imports with duties of its own but limited their scope in a possible bid to avoid a full-blown trade war.
The measures against US products ranging from liquefied natural gas to cars will take effect on February 10 and were announced on Tuesday, hours after Trump’s new additional tariff of 10 per cent on Chinese goods came into force.
Beijing also said it would launch an antitrust probe into Google, whose search engine is blocked in China.
China’s new tariffs target about $14bn of goods, according to Citigroup analysts — less than 10 per cent of total imports from the US in 2023, the last year for which there was full data.
The move was “not an escalatory response”, said Chris Beddor, deputy China research director at Gavekal. “They’re clearly aiming for negotiations and a deal.”
The trading relationship between the US and China has shaped both countries’ economies in recent decades. But China’s share…
