Richard Arnold: US Correspondent on the rising tensions between the US and China as a result of tariffs

America's tariff tiff with Canada and Mexico may have cooled, but tension with China is escalating. 

Beijing has announced a package of economic measures targeting the US after President Donald Trump imposed 10% tariffs on Chinese imports. 

The response includes a 15% tax on coal and liquefied natural gas, and 10% on crude oil and types of vehicles. 

US Correspondent Richard Arnold told Mike Hosking that United States depends a lot on China for critical materials like gallium and germanium among others, and limits could cause serious harm to the US economy. 

He says that prescription drugs are also a point of concern, as about half the generic drugs used in the US are manufactured outside of the country. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Stateside Richard Arnold morning, Good morning mate. Okay, so China's involved,
but we got fifteen so maybe maybe not right.

Speaker 2 (00:06):
Yeah, China firing back after the Trump tariffs took effect,
Beijing retaliating with a series of measures. The Trump ten
percent tariff on all Chinese products took effect just after
midnight here. Then China responded, and this will be significant
depending on how long this trade war goes on. China
is putting a tariff tax on things like cold natural
gas and farm products from the US. But also China

(00:29):
is restricting the export of some critical materials. This includes
many that are used in high tech industries. That's going
to be an issue, isn't it. The United States depends
a lot on China for some critical minerals like gallium, germanium, graphite,
many others. Barrenly limits on these could cause significant harm
to the US economy. Also, drugs, talking about prescription drugs

(00:51):
medical drug prices here that Trump tariffs are likely to
drive those prices way up. About half of the generic
drugs that people take in this country, including cancer drugs, antibiotics,
blood thinners, whole long list, are made entirely outside the
US of a because manufacturing is cheaper. Generic drugs account
for about ninety percent of all prescriptions filled here. So

(01:14):
if this goes on, people a lot of people are
going to notice. For instance, in Wisconsin today there is
the story of one family who is a father a
lawsuit because their son, Cole Schmidtneck, has died of an
asthma attack because he could no longer afford a life
saving in haaler. This twenty two year old, This fellow, Cole,
was living with severe asthma for his life and routinely

(01:36):
used and inhaler that cost him about one hundred and
seventeen dollars in New Zealand a month, but the cost
of that inhaler recently was sent right up to a
price of nine hundred and fifty five dollars a month.
This was a life saving medication. He couldn't afford the thing.
Just a few days ago he had a severe asthma attack.
His family say he was struggling for days and days
to breathe. Then he fell unconscious because he was using

(01:58):
only an emergency halo, which is what he could afford,
and he died a few days ago. So in the
trade war, who has the upper hand in today's global market.
The Wall Street Journal calls this trade war quote the
dumbest ever. That was an editorial that they produced this week.
And that newspaper's boss, Rupert Murdoch, just visited President Trump
in the Oval Office. They were sitting together. Trump then

(02:19):
was asked this by a reporter. Mister called the dumast
tray work. I'm dumbest trade war ever. Meantime, there is
a thirty day pause, as you know, on taris for
Mexico and Canada, where a couple of at a couple
of international hockey matches in Canada, the US national anthem

(02:41):
was booed by many Canadians. Canadians politest people on the planet,
or at least they used to be. Right. Trump is
claiming success with Mexico, sending some troops to the border
in Canada, agreeing to some new border controls as well.
But that new Canadian border deal we're saying weeks ago,

(03:03):
i e. Before Trump even took office.

Speaker 1 (03:06):
And then we come to the Sovereign Wealth Fund idea,
which I'm not against actually, but will it separately end
up buying TikTok.

Speaker 2 (03:12):
It depends what you use it for. Right, And the
Trump team is floating that, yeah, the government could buy TikTok.
We know that independent groups have been offering to buy
the Chinese own social media site. That story has been
playing out for months and months. But they have TikTok
as a government owned entity, state run media. Well, that's
something new in the Land of the Free, isn't it.
They're canvassing the thought of giving TikTok a seat in

(03:33):
the White House Briefing Room as well. The new Sovereign
Wealth Fund could be used for this purpose as what
they're saying. This follows the eviction, as you've been speaking
about in recent days, of a number of major media
outlets from key seats in the White House Briefing Room,
which is a tiny space added the Pentagon. So this
is part of an ongoing assault on major media. The
Trump team also has begun a review of sponsorships used

(03:54):
by public Broadcasting here and National Public Radio again government
run and community sponsored radio network, because they don't like
the coverage. So that is after the White House barred
the New York Times, NBC in PR and Politico from
those Pentagon seats. There is also a spike in deformation cases.
Numbers of them were seeing some major outlets like American

(04:15):
ABC are paying multimillion dollars settlements instead of fighting these
things forever in court. Who knows what cost. The publisher
of the New York Times has written an op ed
in the rival Washington Post. He says Trump seems to
be attempting to do in this country what Victor Auburn
did in Hungary. Instead of jailing journalists, says the New
York Times boss, they use licensing and contracts while suing

(04:37):
traditional media so that after a time, only government friendly
media remains. The independent media in Hungary virtually was dismantled.
Some are raising concerns about the fate of America's free speech.

Speaker 1 (04:49):
See Friday might appreciate it. CBS is the one to follow,
as well as sixty minutes interview with Carmel Harris that
the arguments they're looking to settle it, and there's a
tremendous amount of fury within CBS. By the way, RK
they're going to have a floor vote. Will keep you
posted on that. The Senate has confirmed Chris Wright as
the Energy Secretary. He's a fracker CEO of Liberty Energy
and a really cool video if you haven't seen it

(05:10):
of him in What appears to be a hotel room
up against a hotel window in his underwear gyrating. So
that's a little something to maybe keep you entertained on
White Angi Day.

Speaker 2 (05:21):
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