US waives tariffs on 110 Chinese products
By Hu Zexi
People's Daily app
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The Trump administration said on Tuesday it would waive high tariffs on 110 Chinese products, from medical equipment to key capacitors, giving relief to some US companies that had said the tariffs were hurting their profits, Reuters reported.

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File photo: VCG

The US Trade Representative (USTR) waiver followed the approval of 1,000 exemptions in the past year. The Trump administration has so far imposed tariffs on $250 billion worth of Chinese imports and threatened to impose tariffs on another $300 billion.

As Reuters reported, USTR has exempted a component in a Medtronic Plc device used to treat liver tumors, one of 12 exclusion requests granted to the world’s largest medical device maker. The company argued that the R&D-heavy components were not produced in China. However, most US companies’ applications for tariff exemption from the US government have not been approved. In May, the USTR rejected 5,311 of nearly 13,000 applications for tariff exemptions.

At present, the US market is paying close attention to the latest progress of trade negotiations between the two largest economies in the world. Over the past year, trade friction with China has brought significant blows and great uncertainty to the US business community, disrupting US manufacturers’ supply chains in China, hampering agricultural exports and putting consumers at risk of higher commodity prices.

Last month, the USTR held a public hearing on the proposed tariffs on about $300 billion Chinese imports. The seven-day hearing was attended by more than 300 companies and trade associations, and the vast majority of the speakers clearly opposed the US government’s tariff measures, stressing that it would bring a significant blow to the normal operation of their businesses.