Fears over USA-China trade war

The world is waiting to see if a trade war breaks out between the USA and China. Stock markets in Asia did badly in Friday's trading because investors are worried about U.S. President Donald Trump's plans to hit Chinese companies with trade tariffs. A tariff is a tax a country puts on goods and services coming in from other countries. President Trump has warned China he will issue tariffs on up to $60 billion of Chinese imports. China said it would issue its own tariffs in reply to Mr Trump. Tokyo's Nikkei share index fell by more than 4 per cent on Friday, Shanghai's market was down more than 3 per cent, and stocks and shares in Seoul fell by 3 per cent. There was also a fall on New York's Wall Street stock exchange.

Experts on world trade are worried that the import tariffs could be the start of a global trade war. Trade researcher Robert Carnell said: "If the tariffs go ahead as planned, then we believe China will retaliate. It is impossible to imagine that they cannot. And then we expect the U.S. to retaliate further. This can turn ugly on a global scale very quickly." President Trump says he wants to protect U.S. workers and companies. Mr Trump is not happy with the trade imbalance between the USA and China. Experts believe that the USA buys $385 billion more goods from China than China buys from the USA. Trump wants to try and reduce this imbalance by at least $100 billion with his tariffs.