U.S.-China tit-for-tat retaliatory tariffs looks increasingly inevitable

 

U.S.-China fight over manufacturing subsidies just getting started

U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen's trip to China earlier this month "did not achieve any significant breakthroughs," writes Stephen Olson, "but was noteworthy nonetheless in underscoring the looming collision between the two governments over China's surplus industrial production."
 
With officials in Beijing shrugging off Yellen's insistence that the large-scale export of excess subsidized production "would not be in China's economic interests," a cycle of tit-for-tat retaliatory tariffs looks increasingly inevitable, writes the Pacific Forum senior adjunct fellow.
 
Each side can be expected to seek to make its case in the court of global opinion, with Beijing trumpeting "the tremendous service China is providing to the world, especially developing countries, in making critical green technologies available at low prices."