World stock markets and official Beijing may shrug their shoulders next time, “at the first ball.” Of course, if they dare to think, that Washington does not really think, or at least recently did not really think that on November 1 (or some other date in the future), it will drastically raise tariffs against China.
If, for example, there had been that caution on Friday, October 10, would over two trillion US dollars have “evaporated” from the world’s stock markets in one day? In other words, would there be a “financial carom” of such magnitude, similar only to the one after April 2, when US President Donald Trump announced the start of America’s “global tariff salvo”. “Carom” was garnished on Sunday, October 12, by the warning of the Ministry of Commerce in Beijing that “China does not want a trade war with America, but it is not afraid of it.”
Between two Fridays, October 10 and 17, the American administration – after Beijing’s previous announcement that it was further tightening the conditions for the export of rare earth materials (REM) – came out with a series of confronting messages, first one, with fabulous financial consequences. About others, another time.
“We will introduce a 100 percent tariff on ‘everything from China’ on November 1st”, in this Friday-to—Friday time sequence, president Donald Trump first announced. “Everything will be OK with China. We want to help China, not hurt it,” said after the 47th President of the USA, Donald Trump, on Monday. “China will deliberately not import soybeans from America, and we consider that a hostile move,” US President Donald Trump continued on Wednesday. “Further, more tariffs against China are not sustainable. They provoked me (to the strong reaction on October 10),” US President Donald Trump concluded on Friday 17th.
In the same Friday—to—Friday period, US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announced that Washington is in continuous contact with Beijing, and that dialogue relations are very satisfactory, as well as that preparations for the next round of trade-customs negotiations with China continue this week. Then, on Monday, Bessent warned that China is trying” to drag the whole world down with it”, with its bizarre approach to the export of REM, where it otherwise dominates globally. Then on Friday, October 17, Bessent assessed that Li Chenggang, one of the key Chinese trade negotiators, recently (at the end of August) “uninvited” visited the USA, where he behaved “unbalanced”, that is, “disrespectful”. “Maybe he thinks he’s a wolf—a warrior,” Bessent added.
Beijing than looked in its own mirror : Li Chenggang was subsequently dismissed from the position on country’s representative to the World Trade Organisation.
In this tariffs game of high stakes between Washington and Bejing, it seems like every word counts.
