The US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer said on Wednesday that US trade tariffswould target China's high-technology sector and could also include restrictions on Chinese investments in the US. Other sectors like apparel could also be targeted.

"Tomorrow the president will announce the actions he has decided to take based on USTR’s 301 investigation into China’s state-led, market-distorting efforts to force, pressure and steal US technologies and intellectual property," he said.

Lighthizer told the House of Representatives Ways and Means Committee, a top economic panel, that the aim would be to minimise the impact of any tariffs on US consumers.

China has threatened to retaliate by hitting US agricultural exports if tariffs on Chinese imports worth up to $60 billion are announced by Washington.

One study reports that the US has a huge goods trade deficit with China to the tune of $375 billion. Estimates of the cost of counterfeit goods, pirated software and theft of trade secrets could be as high as $600 billion.

Lighthizer conceded that "nobody wins from a trade war," despite Trump opposite view that trade wars "good and easy to win".

China has already identified agriculture as a US weak point and has said it would target soybeans, a $14 billion-a-year business..

China’s Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said."China does not want to fight a trade war with anyone. But if anyone forces us to fight one, we will neither be scared nor hide,"

Analysis from Morgan Stanley report that a global trade war would have much harsher economic consequences, possibly hitting the dollar, US stock markets and currencies as varied as the Mexican peso and the Australian dollar.

While China economic confrontation would pit the world's two leading economic giants against each other.