soybeansin washington us trade representative ustr robert lighthizer defending the us move said we must take strong defensive actions to protect americas leadership in technology and innovation against the unprecedented threat posed by chinas theft of our intellectual property the forced transfer of american technology and its cyber attacks on our computer networks chinas government is aggressively working to undermine americas hightech industries and our economic leadership through unfair trade practices and industrial policies like made in china 2025 lighthizer saidthe list of products issued by ustr covers 1102 separate us tariff lines valued at approximately 50 billion in 2018 trade values trump first announced that the us would impose trade penalties on about 50 billion worth of chinese goods in marchafter china warned it would retaliate trump threatened tariffs on a further 100 billion worth of chinese productsin midmay both sides announced a ceasefire after two rounds of trade negotiations the two sides had said in a joint statement that china would significantly increase purchases of us agricultural and energy products to reduce the trade imbalance a top trump demandten days later the white house abruptly said it would proceed with the tariffs a further round of trade talks in beijing earlier this month failed to yield any breakthroughstrumps decision to impose fresh tariffs on china follows his recent imposition of steep tariffs on steel and aluminum imports from canada mexico and the european union on national security groundsthose penalties have been met with consternation by world leaders and led to a fraught g7 meeting with canada france germany italy japan and the uk last weekendthe eu and canada have said they will enact retaliatory tariffs starting in july mexico has already retaliated with its own tariffs on us goodsinternational monetary fund chief christine lagarde on thursday warned that the trump administrations trade policies were likely to hurt the us economy and undermine the worlds trade system