Chinese Media had reported that US should say goodbye to any delusion that China would not retaliate.

China has retaliated to the Trump administration’s decision to levy tariffs on Chinese steel and aluminium by now imposing heavy tariffs on Monday on 128 items of US export worth $3 billion, as it had earlier promised to do.

The USA, meanwhile, on its part is expected to unveil a further list of advanced technology Chinese imports worth tens of billions of dollars on which tariffs are to be levied to punish Beijing over technology transfer policies.

Beijing has decided to put American food items, from frozen pork and fruits to wine, among items on the restricted list in order to nudge US farmers and cause political damage to President Donald Trump ahead of a crucial by-election in the US.

The new esclated tariffs, which took effect on Monday, were announced late on Sunday by China’s finance ministry.

The move is being looked upon as more political than economic — the economic damage to the US will not be as severe as what it would cost China if Trump carries forward his threat of curtailing Chinese companies from acquiring US firms to obtain new technologies.

The Global Times, a Chinese Communist Party backed media wrote in an editorial that if the US had thought China would not retaliate, or would only take symbolic counter-measures, it could “say goodbye to that delusion”.

The newspaper said that even though China and the US have not publicly said they are in a trade war, the sparks of such a war have already started to fly.

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