Hello, welcome to the program. This is News Hour from the BBC World Service, and we're coming to you live from London. My name's Paul Henley.

First today, President Trump has never been shy of a trade war with China. His latest tariffs imposed on Chinese goods imported into the US have now started a new one. Beijing has

announced retaliatory tariffs against Washington. From next week there will be new charges

added to US goods coming into China with the steepest new tariffs on American coal and gas. This is how

newsreader Huang Feng delivered the story on the Chinese state television channel CCTV.

The actions of the US seriously damaged the rules-based multilateral trading system

undermine the foundation of economic and trade cooperation between China and the US

and disrupt the stability of global industrial and supply chains.

China firmly opposes the erroneous practices of the US

and urges the US to rectify them immediately.

Laura Bicker, who is the BBC's correspondent in Beijing,

has been telling me more about the Chinese government's response today.

Well, China has said it will implement a 15% tariff on coal, on liquefied natural gas products.

It's then going to issue a 10% tariff on crude oil, agricultural machinery and large engine cars imported from the US.

And that all begins on February the 10th.

It's also launching an investigation into Google.

It has also targeted a number of US companies.

So this is a wide range of measures that China has decided to use to retaliate. But the date there, I think,

is very, very important. February the 10th, that means there are a few days. There's an opening

here. So as well as issuing these targeted measures, China is keeping the door open, which could help the world's two

largest economies step back from the brink of a trade war. I mean, it's brinkmanship, isn't it? That's

what's going on. Yes, the two leaders do have a call scheduled later this week, according to the

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