Wall Street falls as US-China trade tensions rise
By
Nick Beams
30 October 2018
There were major swings on Wall Street yesterday, with the Dow moving in a range of 900 points, in response to a report that US President Donald Trump is planning to impose a tariff on all Chinese goods if he does not receive a satisfactory trade offer from President Xi Jinping.
The two leaders are set to meet on the sidelines of the G20 summit meeting in Buenos Aires, Argentina, at the end of next month, with the US demanding that China present a list of actions it is prepared to carry out to meet its demands.
These demands centre on measures against the alleged theft of intellectual property rights, forced technology transfers and state subsidies to major industries that the US claims distort international markets.
Bloomberg, citing “three people familiar with the matter,” reported that the administration was planning to announce tariffs covering all remaining Chinese imports if talks between Trump and Xi failed to “ease the trade war.”
The response on Wall Street was to send the Dow plunging after it had opened by more than 300 points up. At one stage, the index was down by more than 550 points before ending the day 245 points lower. The S&P 500 index swung by nearly 4 percent from its high to the low in the trading session, with tech stocks and Boeing particularly hard hit.
According to the Bloomberg report, the new list would cover the $257 billion worth of Chinese goods not already affected by tariffs and would come into effect by February, following a 60-day public comment period.
The US has already levied tariffs of 25 percent on $50 billion worth of Chinese goods, mainly industrial products, plus a tariff of 10 percent on another $200 billion worth of imports imposed in…