China announced Friday that it will raise tariffs on U.S. goods from 84% to 125% — the latest salvo in an escalating trade war between the world’s two largest economies that has rattled markets and raised fears of a global slowdown.
While U.S. President Donald Trump paused import taxes this week for other countries, he raised tariffs on China and they now total 145%. China has denounced the policy as “economic bullying” and promised countermeasures. The new tariffs begin Saturday.
Washington’s repeated jacking up of tariffs “will become a joke in the history of the world economy,” a Chinese Finance Ministry spokesman said in a statement announcing the new tariffs. “However, if the U.S. insists on continuing to substantially infringe on China’s interests, China will resolutely counter and fight to the end.”
China’s Commerce Ministry said it would file another lawsuit with the World Trade Organization against the U.S. tariffs.
Trump’s on-again, off-again measures have caused alarm in stock and bond markets and led some to warn that the U.S. could be headed for a recession. There was some relief when Trump paused the tariffs for most countries — but concerns remain since the U.S. and China are the world’s No. 1 and No. 2 economies, respectively.
The trade war between the U.S. and China “could severely damage the global economic outlook,” the head of the WTO, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, said earlier this week.
Chinese tariffs will affect goods like soybeans, aircrafts and their parts and drugs — all among the country’s major imports from the U.S. Beijing, meanwhile, suspended sorghum, poultry and bonemeal imports from some American companies last week, and put more export controls on rare earth minerals, critical for various technologies.
The United States’ top imports from China, meanwhile, include electronics, like computers and cell phones, industrial equipment and toys — and consumers and businesses are likely to see prices rise on those products, with tariffs now at 145%.
Trump announced on Wednesday that China would face 125% tariffs, but he did not include a 20% tariff on China tied to its role in fentanyl production.
White House officials hope the import taxes will create more manufacturing jobs by bringing production back to the United States — a politically risky trade-off that could take years to materialize, if at all.
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This story has been updated to correct the attribution of the quote about the U.S. raising tariffs to a spokesman from the Finance Ministry spokesman, not the Commerce Ministry.
China has announced that it will raise tariffs on U.S. goods from 84% to 125%.
BEIJING – China announced countermeasures by raising tariffs on U.S. goods from 84% to 125% starting Saturday.
The U.S. and China have escalated a new trade war by raising tariffs even as U.S. President Donald Trump hit a pause on tariffs for other countries. China notably had said it would fight the American tariffs with its own countermeasures, calling Trump’s actions “economic bullying,” which led Trump to retaliate by continuously hiking up tariffs this week.
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Trump’s universal tariffs on China total 145%. When Trump announced Wednesday that China faced 125% tariffs, he did not include a 20% tariff on China tied to its role in fentanyl production.
Trump’s actions led business executives to warn of a potential recession, and some of the top U.S. trading partners to retaliate with their own import taxes, before the pause. But Trump and China continued raising the tariffs in a tit for tat.
“The U.S. alternately raising abnormally high tariffs on China has become a numbers game, which has no practical economic significance, and will become a joke in the history of the world economy,” a Finance Ministry spokesman said in a statement announcing the new tariffs. “However, if the US insists on continuing to substantially infringe on China’s interests, China will resolutely counter and fight to the end.”
China’s Commerce Ministry said it was filing another lawsuit with the World Trade Organization against the U.S. tariffs.
Beijing last week suspended sorghum, poultry and bonemeal imports from some American companies, and put more export controls on rare earth minerals, critical for various technologies, and put a few dozen American companies on lists that would prevent Chinese companies from selling them dual-use goods.
Given the size of the two economies, experts fear global economic turmoil.
The head of the WTO, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, said earlier this week that the trade war between the U.S. and China could “could severely damage the global economic outlook.”