Wall Street Journal report:

  • U.S. officials preparing a review of China's "market-economy status", according to official documents on the Commerce Department website
  • The review is expected to be announced as early as this week
  • Days before a meeting between President Xi Jinping and President Donald Trump
  • The Obama administration declined to grant China market economy status
  • Trump said in December that China is "not a market economy"

For nonmarket economies, trading partners can use other countries' price data in calculating China's costs, a method that has been employed when assessing punitive tariffs against China.

More detail at the piece in the Journal, here: Trump Administration Lays Groundwork to Keep Big Tariffs on Chinese Goods