US proposes tariffs on $200 billion more in Chinese imports

WASHINGTON — The Trump administration is readying tariffs on another $200 billion in Chinese imports, ranging from burglar alarms to mackerel, escalating a trade war between the world's two biggest economies.

The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative proposed 10 percent tariffs Tuesday on a list of 6,031 Chinese product lines.

The office will accept public comments and hold hearings on the plan Aug. 20-23 before reaching a decision after Aug. 31, according to a senior administration official who briefed reporters on condition of anonymity.

Last Friday, the U.S. imposed 25 percent tariffs on $34 billion in Chinese products, and Beijing responded by hitting the same amount of U.S. imports.


The administration said the new levies are a response to China's decision to retaliate against the first round of U.S. tariffs.

President Donald Trump has threatened to tax as much as $550 billion in Chinese products — an amount that exceeds America's total imports from China last year.

The United States complains that China uses predatory practices in a push to challenge American technological dominance. Chinese tactics, the administration says, include outright cybertheft and forcing U.S. companies to hand over technology in exchange for access to the Chinese market.

The initial U.S. tariff list focused on Chinese industrial products in an attempt to limit the impact on American consumers. By expanding the list, the administration is beginning to hit products that U.S. households buy, including such things as electric lamps and fish sticks.

"Tariffs on $200 billion in Chinese products amounts to another multibillion-dollar tax on American businesses and families," said Scott Lincicome, a trade lawyer and senior policy analyst for the group Republicans Fighting Tariffs. "Given China's likelihood of retaliation, it's also billions worth of new tariffs on American exporters."

Members of Congress are increasingly questioning Trump's aggressive trade policies, warning that tariffs on imports raise prices for consumers and expose U.S. farmers and manufacturers to retaliation abroad.

"Tonight's announcement appears reckless and is not a targeted approach," Senate Finance Chairman Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, said in a statement. "We cannot turn a blind eye to China's mercantilist trade practices, but this action falls short of a strategy that will give the administration negotiating leverage with China while maintaining the long-term health and prosperity of the American economy."

source: philstar.com

Trump signs executive order against Obamacare

WASHINGTON -- President Donald Trump on Friday signed an executive order aimed at limiting the "burden" of the Obamacare health law that the incoming US leader has vowed to repeal.

During the signing in the Oval Office, Trump's chief of staff Reince Priebus described the order as aimed at "minimizing the economic burden" of the 2010 Affordable Care Act, "pending repeal."

Doing away with Barack Obama's signature domestic achievement is a top priority for Republicans, who control both chambers of Congress and, since Trump's inauguration Friday, the White House.

In their view, Obamacare -- which aimed to ensure healthcare for the millions of Americans who are neither covered by public insurance, nor by their employers -- marked a costly drift toward socialized, European-style medical care.

Until lawmakers are able to repeal Obamacare, "it is imperative for the executive branch to... take all actions consistent with law to minimize the unwarranted economic and regulatory burdens of the Act, and prepare to afford the States more flexibility and control to create a more free and open healthcare market," the executive order said.

The order instructs the US health secretary and other departments and agencies to "exercise all authority and discretion available to them to waive, defer, grant exemptions from, or delay the implementation of any provision or requirement of the Act" that imposes a fiscal burden or other cost on a state, on consumers, on insurers or on a range of healthcare providers.

Trump has pledged to start undoing the divisive health law on his first day in office, while also declaring it inconceivable that poor Americans are locked out of coverage.

The president has said the law should be repealed and replaced "simultaneously," a stiff challenge given the complexity of America's vast health care system.

Obamacare added more than 20 million people onto insurance rolls, lowering the percentage of Americans without coverage from 16 percent in 2010 to 8.9 percent last year.

Republicans are pledging a repeal of Obamacare -- which has been blamed for sharply rising insurance premiums -- and rapid votes on a replacement bill in order to prevent gaps in coverage and reassure a restless insurance industry.

Only one third of the US population is covered by public insurance -- either Medicare, for those over age 65, or Medicaid for the poorest Americans.

Half of all Americans are insured through their employers, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation, while about seven percent are covered through the so-called individual market, which serves those who are self-employed or are employees without coverage through work.

Obama's solution rested largely on requiring that everyone be insured, and providing federal subsidies to those who cannot afford coverage.

Republicans deemed the first requirement too coercive, and the latter too costly.

source: interaksyon.com