Staff Reporter.
China retaliated to new tariffs imposed by President Donald Trump, announcing it would raise duties on US goods to 84%, deepening a trade war between the world’s largest economies.
The latest Chinese countermeasures are effective April 10, according to a government statement Wednesday. China’s move came hours after Trump’s sweeping measures went into force, taking the cumulative rate announced this year to 104%.
China also said it would sue the US at the World Trade Organisation, added six firms to its unreliable entity list and 12 US firms to its export control list.
US equity futures fell about 1.7% after China announced new tariffs on US goods, a move that came after the Asian country vowed to “fight to the end.”
Stocks in Europe slumped more than 4%. Chinese exports were already facing blanket levies imposed this year as well as punitive taxes from Trump’s first term and the following Biden administration.
Tensions have spiraled between Washington and Beijing since Trump returned to the White House in January. The US president has yet to speak with his Chinese counterpart, President Xi Jinping, more than two months after his inauguration.
The two nations countries are also locked in a stalemate over China’s alleged role in the flow of fentanyl into America, which Trump cited as a reason for two previous rounds of tariffs.
Fentanyl has become a flashpoint in US-China relations, with Trump accusing Beijing of having done too little to stop its precursors from entering the US. China has in turn blamed the Trump administration for using the issue as a pretext to raise tariffs, with China’s foreign minister describing it as “blackmail.”
The Trump administration has also accused China of erecting non-tariff barriers that disadvantage American exports and companies, complaints that were laid out in an annual report published recently by the Office of the US Trade Representative.
Source: Bloomberg.