U.S. finalizes tariff hikes on Chinese goods, many to start September 27

The U.S. government on Friday officially cleared tariff increases on billions of dollars of Chinese goods, adding that they would go into effect on or after September 27.

The office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR) made a final determination on the proposed increases targeting some $18B of Chinese imports that were announced by U.S. President Joe Biden in May.

The tariff increases are directed towards strategic sectors such as steel, semiconductors, electric vehicles and batteries.

“Today’s finalized tariff increases will target the harmful policies and practices of the People’s Republic of China that continue to impact American workers and businesses,” Katherine Tai, USTR ambassador, said in a statement.

The USTR’s formal action marks the culmination of a statutory four-year review of the tariffs levied on China under Section 301 of the Trade Act imposed by former U.S. President Donald Trump in 2018.

Meanwhile, the Biden administration separately on Friday took aim at Chinese e-commerce platforms for what it called “significant increased abuse of the de minimis exemption.”

The de minimis rule allows packages with a content that is valued below $800 per recipient to enter the U.S. without paying import fees. Companies like Shein, PDD’s (PDD) Temu, and Amazon (AMZN) sellers located in China have exploited the rule by shipping cheap items directly to U.S. consumers, avoiding expensive warehousing costs.

U.S.-listed shares of PDD (PDD) were -6.02% in pre-market trading on Friday. Several other major Chinese stocks were also down, including Alibaba (BABA) -1.7%, JD.com (JD) -0.8%, Nio (NIO) -0.8%, Baidu (BIDU) -0.6%, and Bilibili (BILI) -0.4%.

Here are some China-focused exchange-traded funds of interest: (KWEB), (PGJ), (CQQQ), (FXI), (GXC), (NASDAQ:MCHI), (FLCH), (CNYA), (ASHR), and (YINN).

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