Just hours after the United States imposed a 145% tariff on Chinese goods, China has responded by raising export tariffs on US goods to 125%. A spokesperson from China’s Ministry of Commerce confirmed the move.
Speaking to state-run news agency Xinhua on Friday, the spokesperson said, “The United States’ continued imposition of excessively high tariffs on China is nothing more than a numbers game without any real economic significance. The US is using tariffs as a tool of threat and coercion, which will ultimately turn it into a laughingstock in front of the global community.”
“If the US wants to continue this numbers game with tariffs, they may go ahead; China will not join this game. However, if any of their actions hurt China’s national interests, then China will take strong countermeasures and fight to the end.”
Earlier in March this year, Trump first imposed a 20% export tariff on all types of Chinese goods. Then on April 2, he announced that the tariff would be raised to 34%.
In a retaliatory move, the very next day Beijing imposed a 34% tariff on US goods. This infuriated Trump, who wrote on his social media platform, Truth Social, on April 7 (Monday), saying that if Beijing did not withdraw the tariff by Tuesday, April 8, the US would increase tariffs on all Chinese goods by another 50%, effective from April 9 (Wednesday).
Since Beijing did not respond to Trump’s threat, the increased tariffs on Chinese goods took effect on April 9, raising the total tariffs imposed by the US on Chinese goods to 104%.
Amidst this escalation, a spokesperson for China’s Ministry of Commerce on April 8 said that if Trump continued with his “insulting” tariff policies, China would also “fight to the end.” On April 9, China raised its tariffs on US goods to 84%.
Following this, Trump imposed two more rounds of tariff hikes on China—on both Wednesday and Thursday. Finally, on Thursday night, he raised tariffs on Chinese goods to 145%.
In response, Beijing took its latest step to raise tariffs on US goods to 125%.