While Beijing Vows To Battle Trump Tariffs, Japan and South Korea Seek To Head Off Such Confrontations With Washington

Washington has plunged into a tariff war with Beijing that puts America’s northeast Asian allies, Japan and South Korea, on Communist China’s side against President Trump’s effort to slash America’s total trade deficit, which last year hit nearly $1 trillion.Not willing to do a thing about reducing its trade surplus, China is pledging to battle the tariffs imposed by Mr. Trump with all its resources. The Chinese response came not just in its own retaliatory tariffs but from the mouth of China’s foreign ministry spokesman, Lin Jian. China, he warned, would fight “to the bitter end” in “a tariff war, a trade war, or any other kind of war.”That comment showed the hostility between the two rival superpowers in their contest for influence in Asia, while Japan and South Korea sought to head off confrontations with Washington over similar sharp tariff increases.China announced additional tariffs of 10 percent and 15 percent on American agricultural products effective March 10 after Mr. Trump slapped an extra 10 percent on the 10 percent tariff he had already placed on imports from China. Oblivious to China’s trade surplus of $295.4 billion with America last year, China’s Customs and Tariffs Commission declared, “The unilateral imposition of tariffs by the United States undermines the multilateral trading system,” the Chinese state news agency, Xinhua, reported. For Washington, the tariff war complicates efforts to work out deals with allies that form America’s defensive line against Chinese expansionism under the “belt and road initiative” that frames China’s drive for influence across Asia to Africa and, the other way, to South and Central America. Recent measures, including “tariffs on China, steel and aluminum, and threats of reciprocal tariffs on everyone else — will have consequences,” Oxford Economics warned. “Most at risk,” it said, are Taiwan, Vietnam, and South Korea.The tariff surpluses enjoyed by these entities show the obstacles Mr. Trump faces in breaking down barriers and reversing the trend.More than a half century since America stopped supporting the old South Vietnam regime, Communist Vietnam had a surplus with America last year of $123.5 billion, fourth after China, the European Union, and Mexico. Taiwan’s surplus with America ranked seventh at $73.9 billion, followed by Japan, $68.5 billion; South Korea, $66 billion; and Canada, $63.3 billion.Vietnam has dodged the bullet of draconian tariffs with assurances of lowering its own tariffs and importing more American products while preparing to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the defeat of the old American-supported Saigon regime on April 30, 1975. South Korea, coming up on the 75th anniversary of the North Korean invasion of the South on June 25, 1950, did not escape Mr. Trump’s attention.While “China’s average tariff on our products is twice what we charge them,” South Korea’s average tariff is four times higher,” Mr. Trump said in his speech to Congress, “and we give so much help militarily and so many other ways to South Korea.”An analysis by South Korea’s Yonhap News said Mr. Trump’s remarks “added to growing fears that a flurry of his trade actions, including a plan to impose a 25 percent tariff on all steel and aluminum imports on March 12 and his push for new tariffs on cars, chips and pharmaceuticals could weigh heavily.”Both South Korea and Japan, reluctant to upset Mr. Trump. are hoping for exemptions. South Korea has proposed it be treated differently, as America and the South are partners in a trade agreement called KORUS.Mr. Trump seemed much happier with what may be Taiwan’s best answer to its enormous trade surplus — a plan by Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, the world’s largest chip-maker, to invest $100 billion in factories in Arizona. “This is a matter of economic security as well as national security,” he said. “This will create thousands of high-paying jobs.”

While Beijing Vows To Battle Trump Tariffs, Japan and South Korea Seek To Head Off Such Confrontations With Washington

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