Amid the ongoing trade war between the United States and China, Beijing on Wednesday hit back at Donald Trump’s 104 per cent tariffs with its own additional tariffs of 84 per cent, up from the previous 34 per cent, on all American goods.
The Chinese finance ministry said that these additional tariffs will be imposed on goods from the US from April 10, news agency Reuters reported. Beijing had previously announced a retaliatory tariff of 34 per cent on American goods.
China’s commerce ministry also announced that it has added 12 US entities to its export control list, while including 6 American entities to its “unreliable entity” list.
Soon after the announcement, the US stock index futures also reportedly took a sharp dive. Later, the US reacted to China’s retaliatory tariffs, describing them as “unfortunate”. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent urged Beijing to not avoid the issue and asked it to “come to the table”.
This comes just a day after Trump imposed a 104 per cent tariffs on China, with the White House press secretary saying that the additional tariff will be collected from Wednesday, April 09.
Trump’s move was in response to China’s retaliation to his reciprocal tariffs, with the President on Tuesday saying that he was waiting for a response from China before implementing duties exceeding 100 per cent.
China had last week, days after Trump announced his sweeping tariffs, announced that it was imposing an additional tariff of 34 per cent on all US goods from April 10. Beijing had also said that it would control exports of medium and heavy rare earths, materials which are used in high-tech products such as computer chips and electric vehicle batteries