U.S. trade restrictions have hit a total of $369 billion of Chinese exports this year, much higher than the $278 billion of goods impacted by tariffs alone, a regular monitoring report of G20 trade restrictions said on Thursday.
The Global Trade Alert report, produced by Simon Evenett and Johannes Fritz at the University of St Gallen in Switzerland, said most media reports of U.S. President Donald Trump’s trade policies focused on $278 billion of tariff increases.
In 2017, 70 percent of Chinese exports to the United States and U.S. exports to China faced some kind of trade barrier. Following this year’s escalation, 87 percent of Chinese exports and 92 percent of U.S. exports are affected.
But still, the tension between Washington and Beijing accounted for only a small proportion of the total new trade restrictions imposed by G20 countries this year.
“Trade hit by tariff hikes on Sino-U.S. commerce amounts to just 22 percent of global trade hit this year by import distortions,” the report said.
Source: Reuters
