China’s finance ministry has announced an 84% tariff on goods imported from the US, retaliating against recent levies imposed by the White House.
The hike in tariffs, from 34%, came after US President Donald Trump’s 104% tariff on Chinese goods came into force on Wednesday; they were later increased to 125%.
The finance ministry later said in a statement that “additional tariff rates” on imports originating in the United States would “rise from 34 percent to 84 percent”, effective from 12:01 pm on Thursday.
“The tariff escalation against China by the United States simply piles mistakes on top of mistakes (and) severely infringes on China’s legitimate rights and interests,” the ministry said.
Trump said the 21% rise was “based on the lack of respect” China had shown, and that it would be “effective immediately”.
Beijing, which has said its charges would take effect from Thursday, urged other countries to unite against Trump’s tariffs as the country’s exporters reel from the crippling new levies.
“Global unity can triumph over trade tyranny,” declared an editorial in the state-run newspaper China Daily, noting Beijing’s collaborations with Japan, South Korea and other Asian economies.
A separate piece called for the European Union to work with it to “uphold free trade and multilateralism”.
The US’s trade war with China continued to escalate on Wednesday. Hours after Trump’s highest tariffs on a raft of countries came into force, China retaliated with its own 84% levy on US imports.
European markets dropped shortly after the announcement, with the FTSE 100 falling by 3.3% and Germany’s Dax 4%.
Trump later took to his Truth Social platform to say that, in return, he was upping the US’s levies on China to 125%.
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“At some point, hopefully in the near future, China will realise that the days of ripping off the USA, and other Countries, is no longer sustainable or acceptable,” the US president wrote.
He also announced a 90-day pause on higher tariffs for dozens of countries -except China – saying this was because those nations had not “at my strong suggestion, retaliated in any way, shape, or form against the United States”.
Beijing “firmly opposes and will never accept such hegemonic and bullying practices”, foreign ministry spokesperson Lin Jian told reporters on Wednesday – before the latest hike from Washington.
In addition to the increased tariff levy, China’s Ministry of Commerce imposed export controls on 12 American companies, barring Chinese companies from supplying them with dual-use items that have both military and civilian applications.
It also added six more US firms to its “unreliable entity list,” banning them from trading or making new investments in China, and filed a complaint to the World Trade Organization over the latest US tariffs.
US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has shrugged off China’s retaliatory moves, telling Fox Business on Wednesday that it is unfortunate that China does not “want to come and negotiate” a tariff deal. He called China the “worst offenders in the international trading system.”
“They have the most imbalanced economy in the history of the modern world, and I can tell you that this escalation is a loser for them … They’re the surplus country,” Bessent said. China’s “exports to the US are five times our exports to China. So, they can raise their tariffs. But so what?”
The tariffs come at a difficult time for China’s sluggish economy: domestic consumption remains weak and exports are still a major driver of growth.