Trade War U.S and China

Trump Just Announced Tariffs on $200 Billion More Chinese Goods. Here's What's Different About This Round

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President Trump just announced tariffs against $200 billion more Chinese imports to the U.S. AFP/Getty Images

Less than a week into the trade war with China, President Trump is already thinking about levying more tariffs against goods imported from that nation to the U.S.

The White House said it was considering additional tariffs of 10% on $200 billion worth of Chinese exports. This would be the third round of tariffs on Chinese goods imposed by the Trump administration and comes shortly after a tariff of 25% went into effect against $34 billion of Chinese goods. While the tariffs wouldn’t go into effect for at least two months, they would be much more aggressive in the range of goods they’d apply to. Here’s what makes these different.

Consumer goods

The round of tariffs that went into effect last Friday mainly applied to raw materials imported by American companies. Only about 1% of the items on the list were consumer goods. This round targets a larger number of consumer goods as varied as fish, luggage, tires, dog leashes, baseball gloves, furniture, clothing, mattresses, and some electronics. The Trump administration has tried to limit the impact of the trade war on consumers and any backlash that it might prompt, but the scale of these tariffs make it next to impossible to protect them.