Transcript of China hits back after new US tariffs take effect

China has announced retaliatory tariffs against the United States. Nicole Johnson joins us now from Beijing. Nicole, what's Beijing announced?

They had promised that there would be some countermeasures, and just in the last two hours, they have come out with them. They've said that there'll be a 15% tariff on any coal and liquefied natural gas that comes from the United States to China. Now, liquefied natural gas, LNG, it's normally sold on long-term contracts, so it probably won't have an immediate effect. They've also announced a 10% tariff on pickup trucks, agricultural machinery from the US. They've also announced that they will restrict critical minerals, a number of them, including Houston. Now, this is something that China has done before. It has a real grip on these critical minerals which are essential for producing things like mobile phones and laptops, something that the entire world needs. They're also going to hit some US companies. They're launching an antitrust investigation into Google, and another couple of US companies are also going to be sanctioned. But what this is all about is really the message that China is trying to deliver to the United States, and it's clear China is saying that it is not going to take this 10% tariff that Donald Trump has imposed on China, lying down.

Up until this point, they had been relatively restrained in the language that they had used towards the United States. Now they're getting stronger. They've said that it is in bad nature, that it is trade protectionism and unilateralism. But what we're expecting to see in the next few days is a telephone conversation between US President Donald Trump and China's President Xi Jinping, these tariffs from the Chinese perspective would not go into force until the 10th of February. There is still some time a when there could be an intervention or a grand deal or a temporary reprieve, as we've seen in the case of both Canada and Mexico. But for now, though, China has said what it intends to do if the United States doesn't play ball from its perspective.