The Trade War Is On: Timeline of How We Got Here and What’s Next

(Bloomberg) -- The trade dispute between the U.S. and China has entered a new phase, with the Trump administration announcing higher tariffs on $34 billion of Chinese imports, and an equivalent response from Beijing.

Without talks, in the next two weeks or so, the U.S. will announce a further $16 billion of goods to be hit with higher duties, and we can expect an equal response from the other side. That’s notwithstanding Trump’s threat to escalate with tariffs on $200 billion more should China retaliate to his first salvo -- and of course, they’ve done that.

Here’s a timeline of major developments this year (in reverse chronological order)

Further Reading

• Timeline of the dispute from the Peterson Institute for International Economics.
• U.S. Trade Representative’s press release and report on the Section 301 tariffs on IP.
• WTO dispute list.
• Campaign speech by Donald Trump from June 2016 detailing much of what has become his international economic policy

To contact Bloomberg News staff for this story: James Mayger in Tokyo at jmayger@bloomberg.net;Xiaoqing Pi in Beijing at xpi1@bloomberg.net;Miao Han in Beijing at mhan22@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Jeffrey Black at jblack25@bloomberg.net, James Mayger, Jeff Kearns

©2018 Bloomberg L.P.

With assistance from Editorial Board