U.S President Donald Trump is ordering American businesses to “immediately start looking for an alternative to China,” including bringing their manufacturing back to the U.S. The president issued the directive in a series of tweets on Friday morning after China hiked tariffs on $75 billion of U.S. products.
Mr. Trump’s tweets heighten trade tensions between the world’s biggest economies, with China’s latest countermeasures coming in retaliation for planned U.S. tariff hikes on roughly $300 billion in Chinese imports planned for next month and in December.
“Our great American companies are hereby ordered to immediately start looking for an alternative to China, including bringing your companies HOME and making your products in the USA,” Mr. Trump tweeted. “I will be responding to China’s Tariffs this afternoon.”
Our Country has lost, stupidly, Trillions of Dollars with China over many years. They have stolen our Intellectual Property at a rate of Hundreds of Billions of Dollars a year, & they want to continue. I won’t let that happen! We don’t need China and, frankly, would be far….
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 23, 2019
