China Says USA Started Largest Trade War Ever

China has been stealing US patents and technology for decades.  They reverse engineer our planes, computers and other technology and then sell it back to us for half price.  It seems most Presidents have chosen to ignore this crime.

US consumers have loved buying cheap stuff from China because they can use their savings to buy more cheap stuff!  But maybe Trump is gonna try and change this by punishing China?  Maybe China will retaliate by messing with our financial system?

As the day dawned across the U.S. on Friday, a new economic reality dawned with it: The tariffs long threatened against billions of dollars in Chinese goods took effect just at midnight ET while many Americans were sleeping — but Beijing was ready immediately with a wake-up call of its own.

The new trade regulations imposed by the Trump administration, which levy a 25 percent tariff on $34 billion worth of Chinese imports to the U.S., have "violated [World Trade Organization] rules and launched the largest trade war in economic history to date," China's Ministry of Commerce declared in a statement Friday.

Chinese authorities quickly retaliated with equivalent tariffs on $34 billion worth of imported U.S. goods — previously promised as ranging from vehicles to soybeans, beef and other agricultural products.

The rapid tit for tat follows weeks of anxious anticipation over the "trade remedies"President Trump vowed last month to implement. At the time he announced the tariffs, back in mid-June, Trump said the current U.S.-China economic relationship had grown to be "no longer sustainable."

"Trade between our nations," he explained, "has been very unfair, for a very long time."

https://www.npr.org/2018/07/06/626453571/china-says-u-s-has-begun-largest-trade-war-in-history-retaliates-with-tariffs