The trade war between the United States and China has entered a new chapter with the re-election of Donald Trump as president of the former country.

During Trump’s first presidency, he imposed many tariffs that are still in place under the outgoing Biden administration, but Trump will continue to increase tariffs. In turn, China will respond, with both sides falling back on the idea that consumers will end up paying more for products from the other country. DigiTimes reports that the Chinese government is essentially taking a “choose local” stance.

The Chinese Ministry of Finance has proposed that locally produced goods should be allowed to be purchased at a 20% discount in the state-run sector. Of course, this only applies to sales to the government, so a customer on the street will not get such a discount. The move is China’s way of encouraging domestic manufacturing so that people buy domestic brands (such as Huawei products) rather than imported hardware (such as cell phones like Apple’s iPhone).

“The domestic products considered for government procurement must meet three requirements, according to the document. First, the product must be manufactured in China, which means the transformation of attributes from raw materials to components and products within Chinese territory, excluding labeling and simple packaging. Second, the production cost of components manufactured in China for a product must reach a certain level, which will be dynamically adjusted according to specific products. Third, based on the first two requirements, for certain products, key components and key production processes should be completed within the Chinese territory,” the Global Times wrote.

It is targeting US companies, so it is trying to put Intel, AMD and Nvidia at a disadvantage, even though they all have a large user base in China. Huawei, SMIC or Xiaomi are also facing huge production, because if they cut out foreign hardware, someone has to take their place.

In the end, the customer pays for everything anyway.

Source: WCCFTech