Early Friday, President Trump officially announced that the United States would impose tariffs of $50 billion on Chinese goods, in retaliation against China for intellectual property theft. In April, the White House announced the planned tariffs and released a list of possible goods subjected, but had a deadline until today, June 15^th, to unveil a final list. In a statement, Trump said that Chinese products that contain “industrially significant technologies” will be hit with a 25% tariff, to “prevent further unfair transfers of American technology and intellectual property to China.”

This announcement comes days after a meeting with top officials from the Treasury and Commerce Departments and U.S. Trade Representative’s office, in which they wanted to proceed with the planned tariffs but Trump had the final approval. The tariffs will be imposed July 6th in two steps. The first 818 lines of the original 1,333 tariff lines proposed of a list valued at $34 billion will begin to be taxed by Customs on July 6th. Those products include machinery, manufacturing inputs such as boats, elevators, and aircraft parts, and other manufacturing equipment with the exception of TV’s, which are no longer subject to tariffs. Second, U.S. Trade Representatives will hold public hearings for a new list of tariffs worth $16 billion, including 284 lines of the tariff schedule.

China has already said they will strike back, threatening their own tariffs of the “same scale and the same strength” on the U.S. and possibly heading the two countries toward a trade war. Trump has said that he will consider additional tariffs following China’s response.

The list of HTS codes involved can be accessed on the USTR website using this link.

Shapiro will continue to monitor the situation and provide updates as they become available.