Soybeans, Cars, Planes, And “To Hell With Wall Street”

In the tit-for-tat trade war, China struck back with tariffs on Soybeans and other items.

Trump imposed another $50 billion tariffs on China, as noted yesterday.

Today, Beijing Hit Back at the U.S. with tariffs on an equivalent $50 billion of goods.

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While the Trump list would affect 1,300 categories of goods, China critically is targeting a narrower range of 106 types of U.S. goods, many of them high-profile. Soybeans and smaller commercial passenger planes, mostly made by Boeing Co. , are the most valuable U.S. exports to China, worth nearly $23 billion last year.

Also prominent in China’s retaliation are sport-utility vehicles and other agricultural products, from beef to sorghum—goods that were chosen to hit U.S. states that supported President Donald Trump, according to people familiar with Beijing’s plans.

Not a Trade War

We are not in a trade war with China, that war was lost many years ago by the foolish, or incompetent, people who represented the U.S. Now we have a Trade Deficit of $500 Billion a year, with Intellectual Property Theft of another $300 Billion. We cannot let this continue!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 4, 2018

Mercy me. Don’t call this a trade war. It’s really a peanut butter sandwich.

Trade Dispute Will Hit Automakers

Reuters reports U.S.-China Trade War Could Hit German Automakers, Plus Tesla, Ford

If a tit-for-tat tariff dispute between the two countries erupts into a full-blown trade war, auto production in both will be affected, but U.S. factories would feel the strongest effect because China imports nearly 270,000 U.S. vehicles, worth $11 billion, and sends relatively few back.

Tesla’s California plant, which ships an estimated 15,000 cars a year to China, as well as BMW’s South Carolina facility and Daimler AG’s Alabama factory, could lose hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of production if China goes ahead with its threat to double import tariffs. All three export high-margin luxury models, many of them sport utility vehicles, to China.

Ford’s problem is twofold, involving both imports of premium Lincoln vehicles to China and a plan to export low-cost Focus compacts from China to the United States.

Barclays auto analyst Brian Johnson, in an investor note on Wednesday, predicted that Tesla “would bear the brunt of any increased auto tariff on a relative basis,” with China accounting for 17 percent of the company’s revenue.