China hits back at Trump tariff hike, raises duties on US goods to 125%

Beijing on Friday increased its tariffs on U.S. imports to 125%, hitting back against U.S. President Donald Trump’s decision to hike duties on Chinese goods to 145%, raising the stakes in a trade war that threatens to up-end global supply chains.

The hike comes after the White House kept the pressure on the world’s No.2 economy and second-biggest provider of U.S. imports by singling it out for an additional tariff increase, having paused most of the “reciprocal” duties imposed on dozens of other countries.

“The U.S. imposition of abnormally high tariffs on China seriously violates international and economic trade rules, basic economic laws and common sense and is completely unilateral bullying and coercion,” China’s Finance Ministry said in a statement.

In response, China announced it would raise tariffs on a range of U.S. goods from 84% to 125%, effective 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.

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.”

Source: Reuters / AP
-Agencies