In the middle of the commercial war, China has found a way to punish US exports. And you don’t need tariffs

In full electoral campaign, when there was still talk of A fierce duel With Kamala Harris at the polls, Donald Trump recognized during An interview In Chicago that the term you like most about Shakespeare’s language is Tariff (Tariff). “For me, the most beautiful word in the dictionary”, proclaimed. View The forcefulness With which China has responded to its commercial war, it could well think that “tariff” is also Xi Jinping’s favorite word, but the truth is that Beijing has its own way of hitting the US trade.

A much more discreet than rates.

Tax pulse. Trump did not exaggerate to proclaim his love for tariffs. And good proof is that in the almost three months it has been in the White House, it has launched more or less clear ads (and also the occasional Auto amendment) of rates aimed at steel and aluminum or The cars and its components. Also of course the bad calls “Reciprocal tariffs”embodied in the famous rate table that presented A few weeks ago in the Rosaleda of the White House, and those that already appear on the horizon for Chips and drugsamong others.

With the passing of the days and after Trump Pausara much Of its tariffs for 90 days, the commercial war has basically enchanted between the US and China. Washington has decided to apply to Chinese imports rates that rise at 145%while Beijing has returned the blow to Trump raising his own 125%. That answer does not mean that the tariffs are the only tool to which the Chinese executive has resorted to face the US. After all … aren’t there other ways to stop imports?

Who needs tariffs? The news He has advanced it The American magazine POLITICAL: Throughout the last four months, Beijing has activated a series of bureaucratic obstacles and agreements that have had a clear effect on the flow of US imports, reducing them from or even stopping them. The method is more stealthy than the tariff war (and perhaps does not inject the thousands of millions to the public coffers that Trump is looking for with the tariffs), but allows Beijing to hit the US at a sensitive point, its commercial exports.

THE KEY: Non -tariff barriers. “A tariff pays and things are more expensive, this is a total restriction to the ability to send products to that country,” Ben Lilliston commentsof the Institute of Agricultural and Commercial Policy. It is not a minor note if the intense commercial flow between China and the US is taken into account, which in 2024 resulted in the export of goods to China by value of 143.5 billion and imports that amounted to almost 439,000 million.

But … How do you do it? POLITICAL Quote some specific cases. For example, Beijing has decided Do not renew At the moment the export permits of hundreds of meat packaging plants and has claimed that some products derived from American chickens do not meet their standards. You don’t have to look much in the newspaper library news in that line. Does A few days The General Administration of Customs warned of the appearance of Furacilina, a substance prohibited in the country, in three lots of meat of US companies. Result: suspended its import.

The Chinese organism took A similar measure With the sorghum products of an American company after detecting “excessive levels of zaralenone”, a type of mycotoxin. The decision was announced one day after Trump imposed a 34% tariff on Chinese goods, although Beijing insists in which the restrictions for technical reasons and objectives apply: “To prevent risks and guarantee the safety of livestock production and consumer health.”

Are there more cases? Yes. ABC News recently He informed that some 300 US slaughterhouses have not yet renewed their export permits to move beef to China, which seems to have found a substitute in Australian livestock. Beijing’s reluctance to renew the licenses have in fact stopped a good part US rescor export. And that are major words. In 2024 the US exported to China worth 1.6 billion dollars.

Another sector that has also been emphasized of turbulence is that of natural gas. At the beginning of the month, with the commercial war about to climb, Bloomberg revealed that China had no matter of US LNG 60 days. The scenario remembers the one who lived years ago, during Trump’s first mandate, when the Asian giant stopped receiving US shipments during Around 400 days.

Citing Kpler data, POLITICAL assures that so far this year of China imported only a cargo of gas compared to 14 of the same period of 2024.

Hitting where it hurts the most. Chinese restrictions not only affect US exports, with their corresponding impact on a flow that moves millions of dollars. By applying Beijing can point to concrete sectors, such as Lift POLITICALindustries rooted in states (Iowa or Nebraska, for example) that usually act as republican vote heshes and therefore can exert greater pressure on Trump. Something similar did A few weeks ago The Brussels when he planned his own response to the first USA tariffs.

Bureaucratic obstacles and restrictions also force companies to move in slippery terrain, even more than that of tariffs. “We do not want health and security to become a political issue,” Darci Vetter argueswith experience in the US commercial representative office. “Convert carers carefully considered and based on science into a political issue.”

Marc Busch, who has also exercised as an advisor to the US Department of Commerce, is even more categorical: “This is what China does: commercial actions disguised as legitimate public policies with a scientific basis.”

Is it a new measure? No, not exactly. The Chinese government seems to have intensified restrictions that are not new and can even go back to Your entrance In the World Trade Organization (WTO), more than 20 years ago. The US is not the first country that is found with brakes to its exports that coincide with moments of tension with Beijing. It happened to him In 2018 To Canada, when after the arrest of Meng Wanzhou, a high directive by Huawei, China decided to suspend purchases of Canola Canola seeds.

As the economist Colin Carter recalls POLITICALthe Asian giant is not the only one who applies non -tariff barriers. “One of the most flagrant examples, if we look in the mirror, is the US sugar policy,” Comment.

Images | Governmentza (Flickr) and Andrés López Maldonado (UNSPLASH)

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