China has vowed to hit back after President Donald Trump announced major new tariffs on its exports to the United States as part of his radical overhaul of a century of American global trade policy.
Trump unveiled 54% tariffs on all Chinese imports into the US Wednesday, in a move poised to push a major reset of relations and escalate a trade war between the world’s two largest economies.
“China firmly opposes this and will resolutely take countermeasures to safeguard its own rights and interests,” China’s Ministry of Commerce said in a statement Thursday morning.
The ministry slammed the move that stands as a centerpiece in Trump’s effort to reshape the rules of international trade as “typical unilateral bullying practice,” while urging the US to cancel the tariffs and “properly resolve differences with its trading partners through equal dialogue.”
“The United States has drawn the so-called ‘reciprocal tariffs’ based on subjective and unilateral assessments, which is inconsistent with international trade rules and seriously damages the legitimate rights and interests of relevant parties,” the statement said.
Trump’s announcement Wednesday adds 34% so-called “reciprocal” tariffs to existing 20% duties on all Chinese imports to the US. Since returning to power in January, Trump had already levied two tranches of 10% additional levies on all Chinese imports, which the White House said was necessary to stem the flow of illicit fentanyl from the country to the US.
Trump unveiled the measures during an address in the White House’s Rose Garden, where he separately announced an additional 10% duties on all imports to the US and a host of country-specific measures that hit Asian countries particularly hard.
To skirt existing tariffs, some Chinese companies have shifted production to other Asian countries. But Trump’s new tariffs on other Asian nations announced Wednesday will hurt China, too: Vietnam will face levies of 46% and Cambodian goods will be tariffed at 49%.
“I have great respect for President Xi (Jinping) of China, great respect for China, but they were taking tremendous advantage of us,” Trump said during his roughly hour-long address Wednesday. “They understand exactly what’s happening and … they’re going to fight.”
Beijing responded swiftly, but moderately, to the previous rounds of tariffs imposed by the Trump administration this year. That retaliation included 10% or 15% duties on certain kinds of fuel, as well as agricultural goods like soybeans, wheat and chicken.
It’s also sharpened a toolbox of measures to control exports, including of critical minerals, and target companies and sectors that it can use to exert pressure on American firms and interests.
A US-China ‘decoupling’?
The 54% minimum tariffs that Trump imposed on China are higher than what many analysts had expected and could fundamentally reshape relations between the two economies after decades of interdependence. Trade between the two countries was worth an estimated $582.4 billion in 2024, according to US government data.
“This is really going to refocus that question on US-China economic decoupling,” said Nick Marro, principal economist for Asia at the Economist Intelligence Unit.
Trump’s move may force multinational companies with business in China to reevaluate the practice of keeping operations in the country, even as they enter other markets to diversify their supply chains, he said.
But that process “is going to be difficult,” he added.
“China is very embedded into global production networks ranging from finished goods to intermediate products to even the sourcing of raw materials, and so this is not going to be an easy or straightforward process,” Marro added.
Countries that Chinese and international firms have been moving to as they diversified their supply chains in recent years, such as Vietnam and Cambodia, have also been hit hard by Trump’s tariffs, further complicating such considerations.
The tariffs also come at a challenging time for China’s slowing economy, with officials in recent weeks ramping up efforts to spur weak domestic consumption as they braced for a widening trade war.
Meanwhile, extensive US grievances around China’s economic model, such as its treatment of foreign businesses, its use of state subsidies, forced intellectual property localization and technology transfers could mean more escalation may come, according to Marro. “All of these triggers could lead us to even higher tariff rates,” he said.
Tit for tat?
The US tariffs already had levies on hundreds of billions of dollars worth of Chinese imports into the country.
Many of those duties were holdovers from Trump’s first term in office, when he launched his first trade war with China that resulted in a “phase one” trading agreement that analysts say Beijing never fully implemented. The former Biden administration then ratcheted up tariffs on some additional Chinese goods, including a 100% rate on electric vehicles last year.
This time around, China will likely respond with precision, analysts say.
“Rather than broad retaliation, expect a playbook of calibrated pressure: new tariffs on politically sensitive US exports like agriculture and industrial machinery, expanded use of the ‘Unreliable Entity List’ to target high-profile US firms, and selective export controls on critical inputs,” said Craig Singleton, a senior fellow at the US-based Foundation for Defense of Democracies.
“If (Chinese leader Xi Jinping) refuses to engage, the pressure escalates. If he engages too soon, he risks looking weak. Neither (leader) wants to be seen as folding first, but delay could deepen the standoff,” he added.
But as Trump’s sweeping move shakes up US economic relationships with both friend and foe, Beijing may see some silver lining, analysts say.
In recent weeks, Beijing has launched a charm offensive seeking to showcase itself as a champion of global trade and a reliable partner for companies and countries from East Asia to Europe.
With the US becoming an “unpredictable partner,” East Asian economies like Japan, South Korea and Taiwan are likely to reassess their relations with the US, which could potentially benefit China, according to Jason Hsu, a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute, a US think tank, and a former legislator in Taiwan.
“Japan and Korea, the bigger economies, they are still in no position to retaliate against US, but what they could do is to quietly develop a relationship with China to re-engage, to reassess Chinese market opportunities,” he said.
This is a developing story and will be updated. CNN’s David Goldman, John Liu, and Lex Harvey contributed reporting.
