Published on September 18, 2018
The year 2018 has been full of trade wars and part and counter-part measures on trade imports. July was the month when US imposed fresh set of trade tariffs on imports from China. Now it will impose tariffs on $ 200 bn worth of imports which include plastics and petrochemicals. The effect will come into existence on 24 of this month. Still international market is yet to digest this sanctions, the US government has come up with fresh set of tariffs. The current tariffs are 10% and will rise to 25% from 1st Jan 2019.
China in response to July sanctions has already imposed tariffs on imports from US. They may plant to retaliate further with this new announcement.
The American industry is already facing the repercussion of this anonymous policy of Donald Trump. The American Chemistry Council (ACC) persistently opposed the tariffs, alleging they will put billions of US dollars and thousands of workers at risk.
In US many new plants will go online for production of Poly Ethylene this year. Most of the production was likely to be exported as its domestic capacity is not that high. China was one of the major importers of PE from US. But his tariffs will create an uncertainty for the manufacturers.
There are many chemical products which are included in the $200 bn list of tariffs. Benzene, Phenol, Toluene, Petroleum Oils, Ethylene ,Propylene, o xylene, mixed xylene, para xylene, styrene, cumene methanol are some of the crucial chemicals listed in this list.
To retaliate back China will soon put forth its own lists of products. China has previously announced a 5%-25% tariffs on $60bn worth of US goods as its countermeasure to a further tariff action by the US. The US President has already announced it will impose tariffs on further $267bn worth of Chinese goods if China chose to retaliate again.
This one to one impositions not only hurting the economies of their own nation but is affecting the calculation of other developing nations. Countries like India are under complete confused state and are unable to make any strategic move.
