The world is waiting to see if a trade war breaks between the USA and China. Stock markets Asia did badly in Friday's trading because investors are worried U.S. President Donald Trump's plans to hit Chinese companies trade tariffs. A tariff is a tax a country puts goods and services coming in other countries. President Trump has warned China he will issue tariffs on to $60 billion of Chinese imports. China said it would issue its own tariffs reply to Mr Trump. Tokyo's Nikkei share index fell more than 4 per cent Friday, Shanghai's market was more than 3 per cent, and stocks and shares in Seoul fell by 3 per cent. There was also a fall New York's Wall Street stock exchange.
Experts on world trade are worried that the import tariffs could be the start 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 a global scale very quickly." President Trump says he wants to protect U.S. workers and companies. Mr Trump is not happy the trade imbalance the USA and China. Experts believe that the USA buys $385 billion more goods China than China buys the USA. Trump wants to try and reduce this imbalance at least $100 billion his tariffs.
