Look for a spike in rare earth miners as China now suggesting they are considering inputs essential to certain manufactures--read critical metals. With Japan, they already have show the critical metasl most easily "weaponized" are the rare earths--embargo on rare earth exports to Japan a decade or so ago. Chinese middle class now demanding strong response. Should be most bullish for Ucore and Rare Earth Elements (REEMF)--pop without warning and be swift.
Besides retaliating with tariffs, China says it could also restrict export of goods, raw materials and components core to US supply chains
Beijing: China will not be content to only play defence in an escalating trade war with the United States, a widely read Chinese tabloid warned, as US President Donald Trump was expected to announce new tariffs on $200 billion (Dh734 billion) in Chinese goods as early as Monday.
The United States and China have already levied duties on $50 billion worth of each other’s goods in an intensifying row that has jolted global financial markets in the past few months.
Last week, the US Treasury Department invited senior Chinese officials, including Vice Premier Liu He, to more talks on the tariff dispute, though scepticism remained high among trade observers on both sides over the prospects of a breakthrough.
China’s Foreign Ministry reiterated that the escalation of the trade conflict was not in anyone’s interest.
“We have always maintained that the only correct means to resolve the trade dispute is through dialogue and consultation on an equal basis with mutual trust and respect,” ministry spokesman Geng Shuang told a regular news briefing.
A senior administration official told journalists over the weekend that Trump was likely to announce the new tariffs as early as Monday.
“It is nothing new for the US to try to escalate tensions so as to exploit more gains at the negotiating table,” the Global Times, which is published by the ruling Communist Party’s People’s Daily, wrote in an editorial.
“We are looking forward to a more beautiful counter-attack and will keep increasing the pain felt by the US,” the Chinese-language column said.
Besides retaliating with tariffs, China could also restrict export of goods, raw materials and components core to US manufacturing supply chains, former finance minister Lou Jiwei told a Beijing forum on Sunday, according to an attendee.
Lou is chairman of the National Council for Social Security Fund.
The person who attended the event and is familiar with the White House’s thinking said such a move would likely attract sharp retaliation from Washington, which has studied its own limits on exporting key technologies to China.
“Lou Jiwei’s approach would feed the most hawkish sentiments in the US government,” the person said, declining to be identified given the sensitivity of the matter.
China is a key supplier of minor metals and rare earths used in consumer electronics and other goods.
Beijing has said it would retaliate to trade war escalation with tariffs of its own as well as qualitative measures, which it has not specified but are perceived within the US business community as likely to include increased customs and regulatory scrutiny.
Beijing may also decline to participate in the proposed trade talks with Washington later this month if the Trump administration goes ahead with the additional tariffs, the Wall Street Journal reported on Sunday, citing Chinese officials.
The Journal report quoted one senior Chinese advisory official saying China would not negotiate “with a gun pointed to its head”.
China has not publicly committed to join a new round of negotiations, but in the past it has pulled back from the prospect of talks in the face of escalations in the dispute.
In April, when Trump threatened tariffs on $100 billion of Chinese goods, then seen as a major escalation, China responded by saying it would not conduct talks “under these conditions”.
The Chinese government’s top diplomat, State Councillor Wang Yi, will visit New York this week for the annual United Nations General Assembly, Beijing announced on Monday.