Trade War Target Practice: China Will Punish These American Businesses Nex

The screws are tightening on China, and so Beijing is set to return the pressure on American exporters.

Last week, President Trump announced that the proposed 10% tariff on $200 billion worth of China imports would be more than doubled to 25% in order to offset any change in currency prices. China warned that they are not going to take this sitting down, and said they have $60 billion worth of tariffs of U.S. imports ready to go should Trump pull the trigger sometime in early September.

The largest tariff hikes being prepared now by Beijing include wood products worth $1.83 billion (led by oak wood), liquefied natural gas ($675 million) and mineral ores ($778 million led by copper worth $542 million). “The inclusion of LNG is symbolic in that it was a product where China was expected to increase imports from the U.S. after meetings between President Trump and President Xi in November 2017,” says Chris Rogers, an analyst at Panjiva, a unit of S&P Global Market Intelligence.

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Silvercrest Asset Management investment strategist Patrick Chovanec said last week that his reading from the latest ISM manufacturing survey data suggest lumberyards are already feeling the heat from the Trump-Xi firing squad. “Look at wood products in the ISM survey,” he says, sifting through a set of winners and losers in all this. “There are a couple of others that are relevant as well,” Chovanec says about manufacturers in trouble.

Among manufactured goods, China’s leading Made in America goods are focused on the technology sector, with the largest items being computer accessories ($647 million) and IT network equipment ($578 million), Panjiva research shows.

The Chinese duties are wide-ranging.

According to Panjiva, China’s $60 billion figure hits 56% of U.S. exports, including 85% of all electrical machinery and 75% of electronics. China cannot react symmetrically to U.S. duties based on dollar values because of the trade gap, so the market believes Beijing is likely to implement other measures. These measures include state-controlled companies paying duties or—and why not?—outright ignoring them in certain instances.