Trump moves toward levying new tariff on China for flooding market with cheap goods, AP sources say

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump is moving toward levying a new tariff on China that would penalize the world’s second-largest economy for flooding the global market with underpriced goods, according to three people familiar with the matter.Two of the people, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations still being finalized, said Trump is considering setting the new tariff at 7.5%. It's a level administration officials believe would not endanger the one-year trade truce between Washington and Beijing or a planned White House meeting between Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping expected to take place in late September.The move, if finalized, appears to be a calibrated effort by the White House to work around a Supreme Court decision earlier this year that struck down Trump's plan to implement a sweeping, high-tariff scheme not seen since the 1930s.After that decision, the Trump administration announced in March it was launching formal investigations targeting excess industrial capacity and forced-labor regulations in China and other nations.It isn't clear if the U.S. administration is also nearing its decision in its probes of the other economies that it announced it was investigating for unfair trade practices, including the European Union, Singapore, Switzerland, Norway, Indonesia, Malaysia, Cambodia, Thailand, South Korea, Vietnam, Taiwan, Bangladesh, Mexico, Japan and India.The White House and the U.S.

Trade Representative’s office did not respond to requests for comment on the tariff deliberations, which Bloomberg News reported earlier Monday.The Chinese embassy in Washington said in a statement that economic and trade issues should be resolved through bilateral talks rather than unilateral tariff actions, and rejected the idea that it has an issue with overcapacity.The excess industrial capacity probe of China was initiated under Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974, which allows the president to levy tariffs against nations that discriminate against U.S. companies or commerce.The new tariff would come on top of existing tariffs on ChinaThe people familiar with the deliberations stressed that Trump could still change his mind on the new tariff on China.It would come on top of tariffs of 10% to 12.5% announced last month for 60 economies around the globe that the Trump administration accused of failing to effectively … Two of the people, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations still being finalized, said Trump is considering setting the new tariff at 7.5%.

The move, if finalized, appears to be a calibrated effort by the White House to work around a Supreme Court decision earlier this year that struck down Trump’s plan to implement a sweeping, high-tariff scheme not seen since the 1930s. After that decision, the Trump administration announced in March it was launching formal investigations targeting excess industrial capacity and forced-labor regulations in China and other nations. The Chinese embassy in Washington also did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The excess industrial capacity probe of China was initiated under Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974, which allows the president to levy tariffs against nations that discriminate against U.S. The new tariff would come on top of existing tariffs on China The people familiar with the deliberations stressed that Trump could still change his mind on the new tariff on China. It would come on top of tariffs of 10% to 12.5% announced last month for 60 economies around the globe that the Trump administration accused of failing to effectively enforce a ban on goods produced with forced labor.

Many countries, including China, protested that move, which took effect jus…