china tarriffs on lcd monitors sold to china price

Prices for big-screen televisions and some household appliances could go up significantly if the Trump administration"s proposed tariffs on Chinese imports are enacted.

"On a $4,000 TV ... the tariffs might have a several-hundred-dollar price impact," said David French, senior vice president for government relations at the National Retail Federation, an advocacy group.

"We"re still assessing the list," French said. "There is machinery involved in consumer goods. ... There are chemicals listed that we believe are components of cosmetics and toiletries."

The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative proposed late Tuesday an additional 25 percent tariff on an extensive list of Chinese imports, valued at $50 billion for the year and ranging from aircraft parts to vaccines. A public hearing on the list is scheduled for May 15, and filing requests to appear and comment are due April 23.

"Some goods won"t be imported at all with a 25 percent tariff, but prices of domestic goods will go up the full amount of the tariff," said Nicholas Lardy, a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics in Washington.

But he and other analysts pointed out that for a U.S. economy roughly $18 trillion in size, 25 percent tariffs on $50 billion of Chinese imports will have a relatively small effect overall on consumer prices.

Chinese manufacturer Haier, which acquired GE Appliances in 2016, "only imports a very small number of niche dishwashers designed for small spaces," spokesperson Kim Freeman said in an email to CNBC. "We make about 95 percent of our dishwashers in the U.S. in Louisville, Kentucky."

The National Retail Federation estimates that access to imported goods through free trade agreements boosts the purchasing power of the average American family by $18,000 a year.

"It"s going to be very difficult for the retailer to manage their supply chain in order to handle these tariffs," French said. "Consumers may be price sensitive enough that they may slow their holiday purchases. These may be "Grinch" tariffs."

Approximately 90 percent of all LCD modules are manufactured in mainland China. The remaining 10 percent are manufactured primarily between Japan and Taiwan, and some in Korea. China’s clear stronghold in manufacturing, coupled with its large volume of imports to the U.S., mean these tariffs will definitely impact the industry.

The US government said the tariffs where created in response to China’s Unfair Trade Practices. Specifically, the Section 301 investigation by the USTR revealed:

China uses joint venture requirements, foreign investment restrictions, and administrative review and licensing processes to require or pressure technology transfer from U.S. companies.

China directs and unfairly facilitates the systematic investment in, and acquisition of, U.S. companies and assets to generate large-scale technology transfer.

China conducts and supports cyber intrusions into U.S. commercial computer networks to gain unauthorized access to commercially valuable business information.

Unfortunately, while the USTR works to rectify inequities in these unfair practices, many American manufacturers will have to pay higher prices for their components. That works its way up the supply chain and can ultimately lead to higher prices for American consumers.

The USITC (Office of Tariff Affairs and Trade Agreements) is responsible for publishing the Harmonized Tariff Schedule of the United States Annotated (HTSA). The HTSA provides the applicable tariff rates and statistical categories for all merchandise imported into the United States; it is based on the international Harmonized System, the global system of nomenclature that is used to describe most world trade in goods. Although the USITC publishes and maintains the HTSA in its various forms, Customs and Border Protection is the only agency that can provide legally binding advice or rulings on classification of imports.

Many people are asking about using alternate HTC codes with lower burden implications. Unfortunately, these codes are abundant and complicated. There should be exactly one code that properly categorizes your product.

When a display is designed and built for a single application, it may be more appropriate to use a harmonized tariff code for the end-product instead of the display component. An LCD in a cellphone is a good example of this.

A popular way to do this is to reevaluate your current HTC codes and make sure they’re correct. This can be done with in-house council or the use of a consultant specializing in this area of the government. Ultimately, however, you need get a ruling from the government to be certain you are using the correct code.

Finding a tariff code by perusing the USTR HTC tariff code list can be overwhelming and risky. If the code is chosen incorrectly, it can lead to fines and penalties from the USTR.

Some companies are searching for key suppliers outside of the China region and working towards qualifications of those factories. Others are exploring having key components of the purchased assembly outsourced outside of China so it still satisfies the correct definition of Country of Origin. Again, violating these definitions can lead to costly fines and penalties.

With the world’s attention focused on the Russian invasion of Ukraine, high oil prices, inflation, and component shortages, it’s easy to forget that there was a war of another sort being fought between the US and China.

While trade tensions have cooled since the Biden administration took over, tariffs remain in place on many imported Chinese goods. Soon there will be a few less. The US Government reinstated over 350 products to a list of exclusions to American import tariffs that were put in place beginning in 2018.

The products affected include a wide variety of machinery, electronic components and consumer goods, ranging from television screen parts to vacuum cleaners. Most importantly for PC gamers, the list includes: "Printed circuit assemblies for rendering images onto computer screens."

At a time when inflation is running at multi-decade highs, some pricing going in the other direction will be welcome. Graphics card prices continue to fall, and if these tariffs are removed, many other product categories should follow.

If we assume that cheaper pricing will be passed on in full to the consumer (wishful thinking), it will deliver a little bit of relief in the hip pocket. Cheaper components will have a flow on effect for many kinds of consumer tech, from TVs and white goods to notebooks and phones.

It will take some time for the effects of lower tariffs to manifest in the market. With the surging cost of oil and higher shipping costs, it"s important not to expect too much though. If bargains do appear, we’ll be all over them as we always are.

This website is using a security service to protect itself from online attacks. The action you just performed triggered the security solution. There are several actions that could trigger this block including submitting a certain word or phrase, a SQL command or malformed data.

TAIPEI (Reuters) - Taiwan’s Foxconn is exploring the sale of its new $8.8 billion display panel factory in China, people familiar with the matter told Reuters, as demand for the product wanes amid an intensifying U.S.-China trade war.FILE PHOTO: A motorcyclist rides past the logo of Foxconn, the trading name of Hon Hai Precision Industry, in Taipei, Taiwan March 30, 2018. REUTERS/Tyrone Siu/File Photo

Foxconn, formally known as Hon Hai Precision Industry, is in talks to appoint banks to find a buyer for its liquid crystal display (LCD) factory that is being built in the southern Chinese city of Guangzhou, said two people with direct knowledge of the matter.

A sale would come at a delicate time for Foxconn, which has extensive investments in China, a large roster of U.S. clients that includes Apple Inc, and is having to navigate a tricky path amid the protracted trade war between Washington and Beijing. It would mark one of its largest divestments from China.

Foxconn’s discussions are at an initial stage and it has not yet come up with a price tag for the so-called Gen-10.5 facility specializing in large-screen LCDs, the sources said, adding a sale was not a surety.

Foxconn, in a written statement to Reuters, said: “As a matter of company policy, Foxconn does not respond to market rumors or speculation.” The sources requested anonymity because the deliberations are confidential.

U.S. President Donald Trump sharply raised the stakes in the bruising trade war with China and jolted global financial markets by vowing on Thursday to impose a 10% tariff on $300 billion of Chinese imports from September 1.

The trade war has disrupted technology global supply chains in a major way, forcing Foxconn to review its own. That and slowing demand for large-screen televisions and monitors had prompted Foxconn’s management to seek a buyer for the LCD plant, one of the sources familiar with the management’s thinking said.

Questions were also being raised within Foxconn on the need for the Guangzhou project. “Existing plants are already not running at full capacity ... why need another one?,” the source said.

The second source said the new factory would not go into production until early October, which makes it less appealing for buyers because of the additional risks as compared to an already operating plant.

The Nikkei daily reported earlier this year that the company would delay most of its planned production in Guangzhou for a minimum of six months, but Foxconn said the project was on schedule.

Dubbed the largest single investment ever in the southern city by Chinese media, Foxconn announced the Guangzhou plant in 2016, hoping to start operations by 2019 to meet an expected rise in demand for large-screen TVs and monitors in Asia in a challenge to top Chinese display maker BOE Technology Group.

The project was mainly run by a joint venture between the Guangzhou government and Japan’s Sakai Display Products, an advanced panel factory owned by Foxconn founder Terry Gou and Japan’s Sharp Corp, Foxconn’s display unit.

The Japanese panel maker said on Thursday it would build a plant in Vietnam to make flat screens and electronic devices to guard against additional U.S. import tariffs on Chinese goods.

The global display industry has been struggling with a supply glut and tumbling earnings due to moribund sales of televisions and smartphones, and the worsening trade dispute that could raise product prices and dampen consumer demand.

Taipei-based Foxconn said in April that it remained committed to building a display plant and tech research facilities in Wisconsin amid growing skepticism about the fate of the $10 billion project. Trump had cited Foxconn’s Wisconsin plans as proof he was reviving American manufacturing.

Otherwise, without such Approval, even if the goods have arrived at the China Customs, they will not be cleared normally, and the goods will be detained in the port till get such approval, or even be returned, causing you huge losses.

This website is using a security service to protect itself from online attacks. The action you just performed triggered the security solution. There are several actions that could trigger this block including submitting a certain word or phrase, a SQL command or malformed data.

WASHINGTON — President Trump on Tuesday unexpectedly put off new tariffs on many Chinese goods, including cellphones, laptop computers and toys, until after the start of the Christmas shopping season, acknowledging the effect that his protracted trade war with Beijing could have on Americans.

Mr. Trump pushed a 10 percent tariff on some imports to Dec. 15, and excluded others from it entirely, while facing mounting pressure from businesses and consumer groups over the harm they say the trade conflict is doing.

The stock market soared after the announcement, following weeks of volatility driven by fears that the standoff between the world’s two largest economies could hamper global economic growth.

The decision was the latest twist in a dispute during which China and the United States have alternately escalated tensions with tit-for-tat tariffs and softened their positions as they sought a deal.

Mr. Trump continued to insist on Tuesday that the trade war was hurting only China. But he also admitted that there was potential for the new tariffs to inflict economic pain closer to home.

“Just in case they might have an impact on people,” the president told reporters, “what we’ve done is we’ve delayed it so that they won’t be relevant for the Christmas shopping season.”

Mr. Trump, frustrated that negotiations had failed to yield an agreement, said on Aug. 1 that the United States would impose the 10 percent tariff on $300 billion worth of Chinese imports on Sept. 1. That would be in addition to a 25 percent tariff already imposed on $250 billion of Chinese goods.

But on Tuesday, the United States trade representative’s office said that while a substantial amount of Chinese imports would be subject to the Sept. 1 levy as planned, various consumer electronics, shoes and other items would be spared until mid-December.

The office also said it was dropping 25 types of products from the tariff list altogether “based on health, safety, national security and other factors.” The items include car seats, shipping containers, cranes, certain fish, and Bibles and other religious literature, a spokesman said.

Stocks rallied immediately on the news, with the S&P 500 climbing nearly 2 percent in morning trading before ending the day up 1.5 percent. The benchmark index was lifted partly by shares in retailers and computer chip producers that have been especially sensitive to the trade tensions.

More on ChinaA Messy Pivot:As Beijing casts aside many Covid rules after nationwide protests, it is also playing down the threat of the virus. The move comes with its own risks.

Space Program:Human spaceflight achievements show that China is running a steady space marathon rather than competing in a head-to-head space race with the United States.

A Test for the Economy:China’s economy is entering a delicate period when it will face unique challenges, amid the prospect of rising Covid cases and wary consumers.

New Partnerships:A trip by the Chinese leader Xi Jinping to Saudi Arabia showcased Beijing’s growing ties with several Middle Eastern countries that are longstanding U.S. allies and signaled China’s re-emergence after years of pandemic isolation.

Best Buy, which gets many of the products it sells from China, was among the best-performing stocks in the S&P 500, rising more than 6.5 percent. Apple, whose iPhones and computers would have been subject to the tariffs, climbed more than 4 percent. The technology-heavy Nasdaq composite index ended the day up more than 2 percent.

The tariff announcement followed what Mr. Trump described as a “very productive” call involving Liu He, China’s vice premier and its lead trade negotiator; Robert Lighthizer, the United States trade representative; and Steven Mnuchin, the Treasury secretary.

The three agreed to speak again in two weeks, China’s state-run Xinhua News Agency reported. Negotiators had planned to meet again early next month in Washington.

Now, about $112 billion of Chinese goods will be hit with the 10 percent levy on Sept. 1, according to Chad Bown, a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics. Another $160 billion in goods will be subject to the tariff as of Dec 15, he estimated.

Mr. Trump has been pressing Beijing since last year for an agreement that would, among other things, strengthen protections for American intellectual property, open Chinese markets to American business and result in China’s buying large quantities of American energy and agricultural goods.

But negotiators have made little progress since May. The stumbling blocks included whether the White House would roll back the tariffs already in place and whether Beijing would enshrine in law the changes it pledged to make.

As his re-election campaign gears up, Mr. Trump is increasingly focused on ending the conflict in order to maintain his support among farmers, who have lost some of their main export opportunities as China ordered state-owned companies to stop buying American soybeans. But he has also expressed an unwillingness to accept a deal with China that falls short of his goals.

[Mr. Trump said his tariffs and tax cuts would set off a wave of investment, but data show they havenot caused a significant returnof factory activity from overseas.]

The president has tried to persuade China to buy large amounts of American farm goods before an agreement is reached, but that hasn’t happened. He continued to berate China on Tuesday for not making such purchases and suggested that the tariffs might force it to do so.

“As usual, China said they were going to be buying ‘big’ from our great American Farmers,” he wrote on Twitter. “So far they have not done what they said. Maybe this will be different!”

Chinese officials and state media outlets have responded to Mr. Trump’s prodding by taking an increasingly strident tone and threatening to punish American firms.

China has also allowed the value of its currency to fluctuate in recent weeks, raising the specter that it would use it as a weapon. That prompted the White House to label China a currency manipulator, the first time the United States had done that since 1994.

The tariff delay could create an opening for Chinese officials to soften their statements. There is also the question of whether the Trump administration will allow American companies to continue supplying certain goods to the Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei despite a ban on such trade because of national security concerns.

A so-called temporary general license that allows American companies to supply Huawei despite the ban is set to expire on Monday, but the Trump administration could renew it.

Trade groups said they welcomed the reprieve on tariffs for the holiday season, but added that the changes would not reduce the uncertainty they faced.

“The hope is that this creates an opportunity for the two sides to get back to the table, resume the broad-based trade talks and look at some confidence-building measures that would boost the prospects of a big deal down the road,” said Myron Brilliant, the executive vice president of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

Matt Priest, the president of the Footwear Distributors and Retailers of America, said the delay was also an acknowledgment by the Trump administration that Americans were bearing the cost of the trade war.

“It is no coincidence that the administration is allowing certain shoes to come in without raising taxes in hopes that prices do not rise at retail during the holidays,” Mr. Priest said. “While we are pleased with the decision to delay new tariffs on certain shoes, we are not satisfied.”

Among corporate leaders, Timothy D. Cook, Apple’s chief executive, has been particularly active in lobbying the president and Mr. Lighthizer against the tariffs. Apple, which builds most of its products in China, has been hit by the tariffs on some smaller products like the Mac Mini, computer parts and cables. But the latest round of proposed levies significantly raised the stakes for the company.

So far, Apple has not raised prices because of the initial tariffs. And the company would probably try to absorb a 10 percent levy on iPhones at first, too, Daniel Ives, a technology analyst for Wedbush Securities, said in a research note Tuesday.

But if the tariffs continue into next year, he said, “Apple will have no choice but to pass this incremental $75 to $100 per smartphone to U.S. consumers.”

Mr. Trump’s tariffs have been front and center for corporate executives and investors since the trade war flared anew in May, and the topic had often been cited on earnings calls between company leaders and shareholders.

With the most onerous levies — those set for Sept. 1 — not yet in place, retail executives have mostly played down their impact on profits, at least publicly. The biggest retailers, including Best Buy, Macy’s, Target and Walmart, are scheduled to report earnings for the most recent quarter starting this week.

President Donald Trump and his administration’s proposed expansion of tariffs of 25 percent onto roughly $300 billion worth of imports from China has caused the tech industry to respond. The latest round of tariffs may include a number of tech items, including laptops, tablets, headphones, keyboards, solid state drives and more. Now a deal has been made, though, which could delay some tariffs indefinitely.

Several technology companies, vendors and retailers made their thoughts known in public comments to the Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR). That was during a period of public hearings that took place from June 17 through June 25. But the tariffs have been delayed several times. The USTR announced in August that some of the the tariffs, including many on tech which were planned for September, had previously been delayed until December 15.

Trump announced new tariffs on Twitter, but at 10 percent, on the new goods. This was after he briefly suspended the tariffs after beginning new talks with Chinese leader Xi Jinping. After China threatened to retaliate, Trump bumped current tariffs from 25% to 30% and upcoming tariffs in December from 10 to 15%.

In a statement on August 13, the USTR said that for "certain articles" will see delays until Dec. 15, including "cell phones, laptop computers, video game consoles, certain toys, computer monitors, and certain items of footwear and clothing."

But on December 13, the Wall Street Journal reported that the two sides were coming to a limited trade deal. That calls for China to purchase $50 billion worth of agricultural goods in 2020, as well as "energy and other goods." In return, the U.S. may reduce rates on existing imports and cancel the tariffs that were meant to go into place on Dec. 15, which include many tech products.

The tariffs are wide-ranging and affect many industries, including technology, agriculture, clothing and metals. There are hundreds of product categories listed on the website for the Harmonized Tariff System (HTS) of the United States. You can read the full list of the latest round of tariffs here.

8471.30.01Portable automatic data processing machines, not over 10 kg, consisting at least a central processing unit, keyboard and display.Laptops, tablets

8517.62.0090Machines for the reception, conversion and transmission or regeneration of voice, images or other data, nesoi.Routers, NAS devices, smart speakers, smartwatches

8517.70.00Parts of telephone sets; parts of other apparatus for the transmission or reception of voice, images or other data, including apparatus for.Repair parts, especially for smartphones

8528.52.00Other monitors capable of directly connecting to and designed for use with an automatic data processing machine of heading 8471.Flat-panel monitors

8528.72.64Color television reception apparatus w/flat panel screen, video display diagonal over 34.29 cm, incorporating a VCR or player.Flat-panel televisions

Other technologies, including discs, batteries, cameras and projectors also appear on the list in various forms. And, CPU fans, processors (8542.30.01) are also scheduled.

In August, China threatened to place tariffs on $75 billion in U.S. goods in Trump follows through on his threats to China. The plan includes tariffs of 5 or 10% on a American products, including oil, agricultural products, automobiles and more. The tariffs are scheduled to start the same days as the U.S. ones - Sept. 10 and Dec. 15.

Following this, Trump said he would raise tariffs on $250 billion of goods to 30% from 25%. New tariffs on $300 billion worth of goods in and December will move from 10% to 15%.

On October 11, the U.S. and China struck a "phase one deal" that eliminates October tariffs. December tariffs, which may affect consumer electronics, are still under discussion.

But a "Phase One" trade deal in December put an indefinite delay on some of those tariffs. Per Reuters, tariffs on laptops and cellphones won"t go into place. The Entertainment Software Association told Polygon that the tariffs also won"t affect video game consoles.

A number of tech companies have commented on the tariffs publicly, and they all have expressed a wish for, unsurprisingly, categories affecting their businesses to be removed from the list.

Two notable joint comments have also been written. The first was one from Intel, HP, Dell and Microsoft regarding laptops while another came from Nintendo of America, Microsoft and Sony Interactive Entertainment about the effects on video game consoles.

All of the comments have some commonalities. Many mention the costs of moving existing supply chains out of China to either the United States or other countries in Asia. Additionally, they point out that companies that do not serve the United States as a primary customer base could gain a competitive advantage, as well as brands outside of the United States. (Fitbit, for example, suggested Xiaomi and Huawei would be strengthened as it was affected.)

The Consumer Technology Association, a group representing technology companies, commissioned a study suggesting that the U.S. price of cell phones would rise 14%, video game consoles and laptops would each increase 19%. The price of drones would jump 15%.

In its own public comment, the Entertainment Software Association, which represents the video game industry, wrote that: “the imposition of a 10% tariff rate could place these products out of reach for many consumers – let alone a 25% tariff, which would have an even greater impact, likely causing consumers to purchase fewer consoles, controllers and accessories. This is because console makers will be unable to absorb the tariffs.

In August of 2017, the USTR began investigating the practices of the Chinese government. The investigation included policies and action regarding intellectual property, technology transfer and more.

The USTR and the office of President Donald Trump have deemed China’s policies as restricting commerce in the United States and “unreasonable or discriminatory.”

Update: Jan 27, 2:32 p.m. ET with news that the U.S. and and China have reached a "Phase 1" trade deal, which delays tariffs on phones, laptops and consoles, among other things.

The item concerned is a liquid crystal display (LCD) cell. This device will be used as the display within an automobile HVAC control panel. It is used to display information regarding temperature settings, fan speed, defrost and ventilation conditions.

The device concerned is the LCD cell only. This cell does not contain drive circuitry. The drive circuitry is external to the display. This LCD display cell is a passive matrix, single-color, fixed segmented character display with pin connectors.

The applicable subheading for the liquid crystal display (LCD) cell will be 9013.80.7000, Harmonized Tariff Schedule of the United States (HTSUS), which provides for “Liquid crystal devices not constituting articles provided for more specifically in other headings…: Flat panel displays other than for articles of heading 8528, except subheadings 8528.52 or 8528.62.” The rate of duty will be Free.

Effective July 6, 2018, the Office of the United States Trade Representative imposed an additional tariff on certain products of China classified in the subheadings enumerated in Section XXII, Chapter 99, Subchapter III U.S. Note 20(b), HTSUS.  For additional information see “Notice of Action and Request for Public Comment Concerning Proposed Determination of Action Pursuant to Section 301: China’s Acts, Policies, and Practices Related to Technology Transfer, Intellectual Property, and Innovation” (June 20, 2018, 83 F.R. 28710).  Products of China that are provided for in subheading 9903.88.01 and classified in one of the subheadings enumerated in U.S. note 20(b) to subchapter III shall continue to be subject to antidumping, countervailing, or other duties, fees and charges that apply to such products, as well as to those imposed by subheading 9903.88.01.

Products of China classified under subheading 9013.80.7000, HTSUS, unless specifically excluded, are subject to the additional 25 percent ad valorem rate of duty.  At the time of importation, you must report the Chapter 99 subheading, i.e., 9903.88.01, in addition to subheading 9013.80.7000, HTSUS, listed above.

The tariff is subject to periodic amendment so you should exercise reasonable care in monitoring the status of goods covered by the Notice cited above and the applicable Chapter 99 subheading.

Duty rates are provided for your convenience and are subject to change. The text of the most recent HTSUS and the accompanying duty rates are provided on the World Wide Web at https://hts.usitc.gov/current.

A copy of the ruling or the control number indicated above should be provided with the entry documents filed at the time this merchandise is imported. If you have any questions regarding the ruling, contact National Import Specialist Steven Pollichino at [email protected]

WASHINGTON/BEIJING (Reuters) - Chinese Vice Premier Liu He will travel to Washington for two days of trade talks this week, China said on Tuesday, setting up a last-ditch bid for a deal that would avoid a sharp increase in tariffs on Chinese goods ordered by U.S. President Donald Trump.

U.S. officials have accused China of reneging in the past week on substantial commitments made during months of negotiations aimed at ending their trade war, prompting Trump to issue a new deadline to raise tariffs on $200 billion worth of Chinese goods to 25 percent from 10 percent.

The higher tariffs are scheduled to take effect at 12:01 a.m. EDT (0401 GMT) on Friday, a spokesman for the U.S. Trade Representative’s office said. That comes right in the middle of Liu’s visit.

China’s Commerce Ministry said that Liu, who leads the talks for Beijing, will spend only two days in Washington - Thursday and Friday - instead of the three days he had previously planned before Trump announced the tariff increase.

U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin on Monday cast doubt on the talks, telling reporters China had backtracked on previous commitments.

The gloomier tone shook Wall Street, causing major stock indexes to tumble more than 1 percent. Treasury yields and oil prices also fell as the potential for an unraveling of the trade talks sparked fresh concerns about global economic growth.

During a 10-month U.S.-China war, U.S. tariffs have been imposed on $250 billion worth of Chinese goods, and retaliatory Chinese tariffs slapped on $110 billion worth of American products. Trump has pushed for sweeping changes to China’s policies on intellectual property theft, technology transfers industrial subsidies and market access.

Trump has criticized the U.S. trade deficit with China, which hit a record $419 billion in 2018, as stealing American manufacturing jobs. His hard line on China has played well with his political base in Midwestern industrial and farm states, with Trump seeking re-election next year.

Trump had initially set the tariff increase to 25 percent on $200 billion worth of Chinese goods, including internet modems and routers, printed circuit boards, vacuum cleaners and furniture, in January. He delayed the deadline until March 1 to allow negotiations, and then postponed the increase indefinitely, citing progress in the talks.

A person with knowledge of the talks told Reuters that Chinese negotiators sought to reverse earlier agreements to make changes to Chinese laws to reflect policy changes on a “comprehensive” range of issues. It would be difficult to overcome this setback and reach agreement on other sticking points, such as subsidies and cloud-computing access, in just two days of talks, the person said.

Wendy Cutler, a former USTR chief negotiator for Asia, said it was normal to see drama in the final stages of a major trade negotiation, but indications of Chinese backtracking on previously agreed text were cause for concern.

“That signals a deep lack of trust between the negotiating teams, which can be hard to rebuild,” said Cutler, now managing director of the Asia Society Policy Institute in Washington.FILE PHOTO: Chinese Vice Premier Liu He, U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer arrive for a group photo session after concluding their meeting at the Diaoyutai State Guesthouse in Beijing, China, May 1, 2019. Andy Wong/Pool via REUTERS/File Photo

“It all now hinges upon what Liu He is bringing with him to Washington,” Cutler added. “If he can convince Lighthizer that China will honor commitments made during previous rounds then things presumably can get back on track so to the remaining sticking points can be addressed.”

China’s response to the prospect of new tariffs has been reserved. Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said in a press briefing on Tuesday that mutual respect was the basis for reaching a trade agreement.

“Talks are by their nature a process of discussion. It’s normal for both sides to have differences. China won’t shun problems and is sincere about continuing talks,” Geng said.

China will keep calm against threats of higher tariffs from the United States and has “complete confidence” in its ability to face challenges in trade talks, a commentary in the Communist Party’s People’s Daily, China’s top newspaper said on Wednesday.

But recently it has adopted new laws, including a foreign investment law, and amended others, moves some see as efforts to tackle the concerns of the United States and other foreign investors, including those from China’s largest trading partner, the European Union.

The United States now has 25 percent tariffs on $50 billion of Chinese machinery and technology goods, and 10 percent tariffs on $200 billion of products ranging from computer modems and routers to furniture, lighting and building materials.

Negotiations to remove U.S. tariffs have been one of the remaining sticking points. China wants the tariffs removed. U.S. officials want to keep some, if not all, as part of any final deal to ensure China lives up to its commitments.

Reporting by David Lawder in Washington and Ben Blanchard in Beijing; Additional reporting by Jeff Mason and David Shepardson in Washington, Michael Martina in Beijing and Sinead Carew in New York; Editing by Will Dunham and Simon Cameron-Moore

U.S. President Joe Biden holds a semiconductor during his remarks before signing an executive order on the economy at the White House in Washington, D.C., on Feb. 24, 2021.Doug Mills/Pool/Getty Images

In the summer of 2020, massive wildfires erupted in California and Oregon. Forest fires are a yearly occurrence in the region. Yet amid devastation and chaos, the thousands of firefighters battling the flames quickly noticed that something was different from other years. Controlled burning, a crucial tool to prevent wildfires, had not taken place during the spring. Something else was amiss: There were no drones available to monitor how quickly the flames were spreading. If firefighters had known why there had been no controlled burns and why drones were missing, they would probably have been surprised. It had nothing to do with forests, environmental policies, or perennial budget cuts. It was all about China.

The previous year, the Trump administration had ordered U.S. government agencies to stop using more than 800 drones that previously helped to monitor fires and to conduct controlled burns across the country. The drones worked perfectly well, but they were made by DJI, a Chinese company. Using unmanned aircraft from DJI is nothing special: The firm supplies more than 70 percent of the world’s civilian drones. However, the administration worried that the drones might covertly send sensitive information to China, allowing Beijing to see exactly what the drones could see.

DJI had vigorously denied these claims and taken steps to relocate production to the United States. Staff from the U.S. Interior Department had warned that halting controlled burning would likely result in catastrophic wildfires. Yet the administration had chosen to ignore these warnings and to go even further with its China-proofing strategy: Washington also halted the acquisition of 17 high-tech systems, called Ignis, which help to start controlled fires. The technology was American. Several years earlier, the U.S. government had added Ignis to a top list of “Made in America” innovations. However, there was a catch: The Ignis systems include Chinese-made components. For the administration, this was too much of a risk to take.

With drones grounded and Ignis systems missing, the U.S. Office of Wildland Fire was able to carry out only a quarter of the controlled-burning operations that it had arranged to undertake in 2020. The backup plan would have been to use aircraft manned by firefighters, but this option was quickly abandoned: It imperiled human lives when there was a risk-free alternative.

The lack of drones was a tangible illustration of the ripple effects of the U.S.-China conflict. It came with catastrophic consequences. It is unlikely that using drones would have prevented the fires, which were due to an unusual combination of strong winds and extreme heat. However, perhaps it could have helped to lower the death toll (nearly 40 people died) and to reduce the scope of the damage (which reached $19 billion in California alone). Was mitigation of unsubstantiated risks that China may use the drones to spy on U.S. soil worth such a high price? For Washington, the answer was apparently a clear yes.

The new FLIR C360 Muve gas detector is seen on a DJI Matrice 210 drone during a demonstration at the Los Angeles Fire Department ahead of DJI"s AirWorks conference in Los Angeles.

The new FLIR C360 Muve gas detector is seen on a DJI Matrice 210 drone during a demonstration at the Los Angeles Fire Department ahead of DJI’s AirWorks conference in Los Angeles on Sept. 23, 2019. ROBYN BECK/AFP via Getty Images

Washington’s concerns around China’s technological rise—and the industrial espionage and cybertheft that go with it—date back to the early 2000s. They came to the fore in 2018, when the U.S. trade representative issued a lengthy report summarizing China’s perceived offenses against the United States. The document highlighted Washington’s realization that the Chinese economy is not market-driven, but fully state-led. According to the U.S. government, China’s economic strategy focuses on attracting foreign firms, stealing their technology, and indigenizing it before forcing the companies out of the Chinese market. In the view of U.S. policymakers, this process involves only a few, well-documented steps.

First, the Chinese government forces global companies that want to gain access to China’s market to form joint ventures with Chinese firms. These local companies have one single objective: siphoning the technological secrets of their foreign counterparts. This is a well-known issue; as the U.S. Office of the National Counterintelligence Executive put it, “Chinese actors are the world’s most active and persistent perpetrators of economic espionage.” (To be fair, the United States is probably not far behind.) Alternatively, China may also force Western firms to sell their know-how to their Chinese partners at ridiculously low prices.

Once Beijing has gathered the technology it is looking for, Chinese companies replicate it. This is the famous moment when foreign businesses realize that a factory closely resembling their own has just opened down the road. Strangely, the Chinese plant happens to manufacture exact replicas of the Western products. Washington believes that Beijing eventually plans to kick foreign companies out of China. This makes sense, in theory: Once Chinese companies have gotten hold of foreign technology, Beijing may see little reason to let competing foreign firms remain in its domestic market.

These unfair practices are widely acknowledged, but they form only one aspect of U.S. concerns toward China. In recent years, the U.S. government has also become increasingly worried that letting Chinese technological companies operate on U.S. soil or having U.S. government agencies use Chinese-made technology puts national security at risk. This was the reasoning behind the grounding of the controlled-burning drones on the West Coast. The issue is far from limited to drones, however. The argument goes that all of China’s high-tech companies have ties to the Chinese state and may be compelled to secretly gather data on their Western consumers.

On paper, these concerns appear valid. Although there are no public records of such an occurrence, China’s national security law may force Chinese companies that operate in the United States to collect information on American citizens or businesses and to send these data back to Beijing. Chinese firms have no choice but to cooperate with Beijing; according to China’s regulations, the companies have no right to appeal such requests. Many U.S. firms already take these issues seriously. Technological supplies to Google and Facebook, for instance, have to be China-proof.

From this perspective, Chinese-made cellphone towers installed near government buildings, such as federal offices or military bases, pose an especially acute threat. This is the crux of the debate around Beijing’s participation to the global rollout of 5G telecommunications networks. Defense hawks believe that China could use the infrastructure to spy on sensitive installations. China’s backers are quick to point out that these concerns are both theoretical and unsubstantiated. However, there are precedents: On two separate occasions, China was accused of spying on the Ethiopian headquarters of the African Union. Beijing and the Chinese companies that are suspected of having been involved have denied the accusations, which the African Union has also—albeit inexplicably—downplayed.

The U.S. security establishment’s worst-case scenario looks even more worrying. Some experts fear that installing Chinese-made telecommunications equipment on U.S. soil may enable Beijing to pull the plug on America’s phone or Internet networks. Most analysts believe that this is not really feasible. At any rate, this sounds unlikely: China’s growth would tank if the U.S. economy crashed. If China took such an extreme step, Beijing’s long-term ability to convince countries to install Chinese telecommunications equipment would also suffer. However, if the United States and China became embroiled in a direct military conflict, for instance over Taiwan, Beijing would have nothing to lose.

Nowadays, the bipartisan view in Washington’s corridors of power is that China is rolling out a revamped version of economic imperialism, just like Great Britain in the 19th century or Japan after World War II. To retain its role as the world’s sole superpower, Washington believes that it has to stop Beijing in its tracks. Some Americans go as far as seeing the U.S.-China clash as a generational one, on a par with conflicts against the former Soviet Union or Islamist terror. The reality may be less dramatic. The conflict between the United States and China is one for economic dominance between an incumbent economic superpower and its rising challenger.

In this economic war, the United States is unsurprisingly keen to put all forms of economic coercion to good use. The Trump administration imposed tariffs on $360 billion of U.S. imports from China; President Joe Biden has made it clear he is not lifting these. The United States has also sanctioned Chinese individuals linked to human-rights abuses against both the Uyghur minority in Xinjiang and pro-democracy protesters in Hong Kong. In the financial sphere, U.S. lawmakers are pondering whether to delist more than $1 trillion worth of shares of Chinese companies on U.S. stock exchanges. Congress is also considering barring the Thrift Savings Plan, which manages the pensions of millions of federal government employees, from investing in Chinese companies.

The Chinese economy, however, has grown far too big for Washington to sanction Beijing with its usual toolkit. The United States has probably explored all the potential trade tools—mainly tariffs—that it can use against China. Financial sanctions appear highly unlikely; targeting the world’s second-largest economy with financial sanctions would almost certainly backfire. The United States needs something else to advance its interests against China. Washington has therefore focused its efforts on the technology sector.

A worker handles copper lead frames at Renesas Electronics, a semiconductor manufacturer, in Beijing on May 14, 2020.NICOLAS ASFOURI/AFP via Getty Images

In 2016, the Chinese leadership announced that it planned to spend $150 billion over 10 years to develop a Chinese semiconductor industry. The U.S.-China conflict had not started in earnest by then, but Beijing’s announcement raised alarm bells across the U.S. defense establishment. Experts warned that China’s plan to beef up its presence in the semiconductor sector put U.S. national security at risk: In a few decades, Chinese firms could become able to manufacture microchips more advanced than the United States’. As a result, China’s missiles, lasers, or air defense systems could become the most sophisticated in the world.

Semiconductors are the Achilles’ heel of the Chinese economy. Beijing buys more than $300 billion of foreign-made semiconductors every year, making computer chips China’s largest import, far above oil. This reflects the fact that Chinese factories import 85 percent of the microchips they need to build electronic goods.34 Most of these semiconductors are manufactured using U.S. technology. For Washington, this makes export controls a seemingly ideal tool to deprive Beijing of U.S. innovation and know-how. Such restrictions function in a similar fashion to financial sanctions: They seek to curb adversaries’ access to U.S.-made staples—the greenback for financial sanctions or computer chip technology for export controls—that have become so crucial that few countries can do without them.

Washington knows that it has a massive trump card to play in the semiconductor sector: Virtually every microchip around the world has some link to the United States, be it because it was designed with U.S.-made software, produced using U.S.-made equipment, or inspected with U.S.-made tools. This is not surprising: The United States is the birthplace of the semiconductor industry. The sector was born in the 1950s to meet the growing tech needs of the U.S. military as it started to confront the former Soviet Union. Around 70 years later, U.S. microchip firms have a market capitalization of around $1 trillion. Simply put, the United States dominates the field.

U.S. firms manufacture only around 10 percent of the computer chips sold across the world. The world’s leading microchip foundries (as semiconductor assembly lines are called) are located in Asia, mainly in Taiwan and South Korea. However, a handful of U.S. companies control all of the higher, upstream echelons of the supply chain. Given the United States’ dominance over the microchip sector, Washington knows that measures curbing China’s access to U.S. semiconductor technology have every chance to deal a blow to Beijing’s technological ambitions.

In 2018, Congress started to put this strategy into practice, quietly adopting a flurry of regulations meant to cut China’s access to U.S. know-how. In May 2019, the Trump administration started to impose export controls on Huawei, China’s telecommunications giant, sending shockwaves through the global technology sector. Washington took these restrictions a step further in May 2020, when the administration announced that it was barring all microchip manufacturers from forging chips for Huawei, anywhere across the world, if they used U.S. technology. Three months later, the Commerce Department further tightened the rules to ban all microchip sales to Huawei. In the remainder of the year, the administration broadened the restrictions to target dozens of other Chinese firms; these included SMIC, China’s largest maker of microchips.

These measures appeared severe at the time, but they were only the first steps. In October, the Biden administration dealt an even more severe blow to China’s technological sector: Instead of targeting only high-profile Chinese firms, Washington clamped down on all exports of advanced microchips and semiconductor-making tools to China. U.S. citizens were also warned that without explicit (and unlikely) U.S. government approval, they are breaking U.S. law if they choose to work for Chinese technology firms.

In many ways, these measures closely resemble financial sanctions. The difference is that instead of targeting global companies using the dollar, Washington is applying coercive measures to firms using U.S. technology, no matter whether these firms are American or foreign. Like financial sanctions, these export regulations seek to force countries and companies to choose sides between the United States and the sanctioned country—in this case China. The United States is betting that the world’s largest microchip producers, such as South Korea’s Samsung or Taiwan’s MediaTek and TSMC, will side with it and stop working with Chinese companies. Alternatively, these foreign firms could maintain ties to China, but this would come at a high price: Using U.S. technology to design or manufacture microchips for Chinese firms has become impossible. Continuing to serve the Chinese market now entails rebuilding entire, U.S.-proof manufacturing lines for Chinese customers at a cost of several billion dollars.

The global ripple effects of export controls against Chinese technological firms have proved colossal, probably even more than the Commerce Department expected. Huawei had to stop production at a number of its facilities, as many of them relied on U.S.-made equipment. Faced with high levels of uncertainty, SMIC slashed spending and investment plans. Outside China, the managers of microchip foundries frantically started to check whether their equipment used U.S. technology. If this was the case, working with dozens of firms from China, the world’s largest importer of semiconductors, had become illegal.

In some rare instances, the production lines of global tech firms did not rely on U.S. technology. In theory, this shielded these companies from U.S. measures. However, Washington intended to see to it that all Western companies ditched their contracts with Beijing—a lesson the Netherlands’ ASML, which builds machines capable of carving out microchips, learned the hard way. The U.S. administration pressed the Dutch government hard to ensure that it would forbid ASML from working with Chinese companies. The Netherlands eventually gave in to U.S. pressure and revoked ASML’s export license to China.

For Beijing, this was a sure sign of problems to come: The Dutch firm is the only company in the world that masters the extreme ultraviolet technology that SMIC needs to manufacture highly advanced chips. For the Dutch company, this development was bad news, too. The equipment cost more than $20 billion to develop, and the fast-growing Chinese market was one of the most promising. ASML’s CEO later hinted that the company was looking at making its supply chains fully U.S.-proof.

Export controls against Huawei were not meant to have a domestic impact, but they also had ripple effects on U.S. soil. Rural cellphone and Internet providers had long understood that they were in trouble. The cheap Huawei gear they had bought to connect remote and sparsely populated places to the Internet abruptly stopped receiving crucial software updates or replacement parts from U.S. firms. This was a death sentence: Without these updates and spare parts, Huawei cellphone towers and Internet networks will, over time, simply stop working.

On the other side of the Pacific, Beijing knows that Washington’s new export measures will pose a host of new problems to address. For the Chinese leadership, semiconductors are especially important in two areas: the manufacturing of cellphones and the roll-out of 5G networks on Chinese soil. The United States does not seem intent on curbing China’s ability to manufacture cheap, basic cellphones, as these do not pose a security threat to the United States; the White House has extended export licenses to a number of U.S. and foreign companies so they can continue to deal with Huawei for such unsophisticated products.

However, Washington appears keen to apply export controls to their fullest extent when it comes to highly advanced, ultrasmall chips. For China, this will be a major headache in the coming years. High-tech microchips are a crucial component of much-touted 5G telecommunications networks. Washington’s willingness to restrict Beijing’s access to advanced semiconductors will likely hamper China’s development of 5G infrastructure. The Chinese leadership will probably be able to prioritize the roll-out of 5G in a few high-profile cities and regions. However, the rest of the country will probably have to wait for longer than expected to get access to the innovations that fifth-generation networks enable, such as self-driven vehicles or smart electric grids.

Such ripple effects, both in China and the United States, are likely to be only the tip of the iceberg. The consequences of export controls restricting China’s access to U.S. technology will be witnessed only over several decades. Innovation tends to come with long-term industrial investments that involve meticulously arranged supply chains and manufacturing processes. U.S. export controls will alter these plans.

The world’s leading microchip manufacturers, including Taiwan’s TSMC (which controls around half of the global production capacity) and South Korea’s Samsung (which specializes in the most advanced microchips), are already redesigning their global supply chains with U.S. export controls in mind. TSMC plans to open a giant, $12 billion foundry in Arizona by 2024; the U.S.-subsidized plant will probably only serve the U.S. market, while other TSMC factories will continue to do business with Chinese firms. Samsung’s latest projects also reflect this new reality: The South Korean firm plans to build two foundries in the coming years, one in Texas for $17 billion and another one in Xian, in central China, for $15 billion.

Even if U.S.-China tensions were to recede, which appears highly unlikely, the long-term nature of such massive investment programs means that the effects of export controls will prove both long-lasting and hard to unwind. The Sino-American conflict over technology will take place across several decades, probably well beyond 2050. Export controls look set to form the bulk of Washington’s arsenal to defend U.S. interests, especially in the technological sector. The measures illustrate the growing shift toward an environment where technological leadership is the main driver of political influence and economic power, as well as a crucial determinant of military might.

Traveler reimbursement is based on the location of the work activities and not the accommodations, unless lodging is not available at the work activity, then the agency may authorize the rate where lodging is obtained.

Unless otherwise specified, the per diem locality is defined as "all locations within, or entirely surrounded by, the corporate limits of the key city, including independent entities located within those boundaries."

Per diem localities with county definitions shall include"all locations within, or entirely surrounded by, the corporate limits of the key city as well as the boundaries of the listed counties, including independent entities located within the boundaries of the key city and the listed counties (unless otherwise listed separately)."

When a military installation or Government - related facility(whether or not specifically named) is located partially within more than one city or county boundary, the applicable per diem rate for the entire installation or facility is the higher of the rates which apply to the cities and / or counties, even though part(s) of such activities may be located outside the defined per diem locality.

All the information, data and documents are provided by ETCN only for your reference. ETCN promises to collect and edit them in due care but shall not be liable for their correction and accuracy. In case of any discrepancy, official versions and interpretations shall prevail.

This website is using a security service to protect itself from online attacks. The action you just performed triggered the security solution. There are several actions that could trigger this block including submitting a certain word or phrase, a SQL command or malformed data.

This website is using a security service to protect itself from online attacks. The action you just performed triggered the security solution. There are several actions that could trigger this block including submitting a certain word or phrase, a SQL command or malformed data.

For a fresh timeline to track key developments affecting bilateral ties between the US and China under the Biden administration, please check our new updating post

In July 2018, US President Donald Trump followed through on months of threats to impose sweeping tariffs on China for its alleged unfair trade practices.

Over the months that have followed since, the two countries have been embroiled in countless back-and-forth negotiations, a tit-for-tat tariff war, introduced foreign technology restrictions, fought several WTO cases, consequently leading US-China trade tensions to the brink of a full-blown trade war.

But finally, on January 15, 2020, the first signs of a truce were seen, when the two sides signed the Phase One Deal, which officially agreed to the rollback of tariffs, expansion of trade purchases, and renewed commitments on intellectual property, technology transfer, and currency practices.

Here, we present a timeline of the major events in the trade conflict, what led up to it, and how the two countries are attempting to deescalate the situation.

China’s Vice Premier Liu He, US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer, and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin talked trade matters this morning. “The two sides agreed to create conditions and atmosphere to continue pushing forward the implementation of the US-China phase one trade agreement,” according to a statement put forth by the Ministry of Commerce of China.

The office of the US Trade Representative (USTR) also released an announcement, speaking positively on the trade deal. “The parties addressed steps that China has taken to effectuate structural changes called for by the Agreement that will ensure greater protection for intellectual property rights, remove impediments to American companies in the areas of financial services and agriculture, and eliminate forced technology transfer. The parties also discussed the significant increases in purchases of U.S. products by China as well as future actions needed to implement the agreement,” said the USTR.

The US and China have agreed to hold a talk “in the coming days” to review the process of their phase one trade deal, said Gao Feng, the spokesman of Chinese Ministry of Commerce, at a weekly media briefing held online. Gao did not give further details.

However, the same day, the US Trump administration declined there was any plan to talk with China. The office of the US Trade Representative did not respond to queries about plans to review the trade deal. As of this news update, no new meeting date has been scheduled.

Nevertheless, according to White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow, the Trump administration remains engaged with Beijing on the implementation of their trade deal.

The US government announced it would suspend or terminate three bilateral agreements with Hong Kong, covering surrender of fugitive offenders, the transfer of sentenced persons, and reciprocal tax exemptions on income derived from the international operation of ships.

The suspension of the reciprocal tax agreement implies that Hong Kong-registered shipping firms, which derive transport income from the US may be subject to US taxes on their gross income. Markets think this will increase t