{"id":47361,"date":"2025-04-09T08:56:34","date_gmt":"2025-04-09T12:56:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newssprinters.com\/index.php\/world\/trump-tariffs-live-updates-china-retaliates-against-u-s-tariffs-with-84-levy\/09\/04\/2025\/"},"modified":"2025-04-09T08:56:34","modified_gmt":"2025-04-09T12:56:34","slug":"trump-tariffs-live-updates-china-retaliates-against-u-s-tariffs-with-84-levy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newssprinters.com\/index.php\/world\/trump-tariffs-live-updates-china-retaliates-against-u-s-tariffs-with-84-levy\/09\/04\/2025\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump Tariffs Live Updates: China Retaliates Against U.S. Tariffs With 84% Levy"},"content":{"rendered":"

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A whopping increase in tariffs, followed by a whopping retaliation. Nationalist Chinese bloggers comparing President Trump\u2019s levies to a declaration of war. China\u2019s Foreign Ministry vowing that Beijing will \u201cfight to the end.\u201d <\/p>\n

For years, the world\u2019s two biggest powers have flirted with the idea of an economic decoupling as tensions between them have risen. The acceleration this week of their trade relationship\u2019s deterioration has made the prospect of such a divorce seem closer than ever.<\/p>\n

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That was underscored on Wednesday when China announced an additional 50 percent tariff on U.S. goods, matching new American levies that had taken effect hours earlier. China also struck at American companies, imposing export controls on a dozen of them and adding six others to a list of \u201cunreliable entities,\u201d preventing them from doing business in China. <\/p>\n

China\u2019s new tariffs, which will take effect on Thursday, mean all American goods shipped to China will face an additional 85 percent import tax. The minimum U.S. tax on Chinese imports is now 104 percent<\/a>. Both figures would have been unimaginable a few weeks ago. <\/span><\/p>\n

With China\u2019s top leader, Xi Jinping, and Mr. Trump locked in a game of chicken \u2014 each unwilling to risk looking weak by making a concession \u2014 the trade fight could spiral even further out of control, inflaming tensions over other areas of competition like technology and the fate of Taiwan, the self-governing island claimed by Beijing. <\/p>\n

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President Trump\u2019s assault on the global trading system strikes at the core of one of China\u2019s only current economic bright spots. <\/span>Credit…<\/span>Eric Lee\/The New York Times<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

Mr. Trump\u2019s bare-knuckle tactics make him a singular force in U.S. politics. But in Mr. Xi, he faces a hardened opponent who survived the turmoil of China\u2019s late-20th-century political purges, and who views the United States\u2019 competitive tactics as ultimately aimed at subverting the ruling Communist Party\u2019s legitimacy. <\/p>\n

\u201cTrump has never gone into a back-alley brawl where the other side is willing to brawl and use the same kind of tactics as him,\u201d said Scott Kennedy, a senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington think tank. \u201cFor China, this is about their sovereignty. This is about the Communist Party\u2019s hold on power. For Trump, it might just be a political campaign.\u201d<\/p>\n

China\u2019s economy, which was already in a vulnerable state because of a property crisis, now faces the specter of a global recession and a devastating slowdown in trade, its defining industry and main driver of growth. In a sign of Beijing\u2019s growing unease, Chinese censors appeared to be blocking<\/a> social media searches of hashtags that referred to the number 104, as in the size of the American tariffs.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a huge shock to the China-U.S. economic relationship, like an earthquake,\u201d Wu Xinbo, the dean of the Institute of International Studies at Fudan University in Shanghai, said of the tariffs imposed on Wednesday. \u201cIt remains to be seen if this is temporary turmoil or a long-term unavoidable trend.\u201d <\/p>\n

To be sure, a U.S.-China decoupling is still far from becoming reality. Chinese and American companies like TikTok and Starbucks are both still entrenched in each other\u2019s countries. And Chinese banks remain hitched to the U.S. dollar-dominated financial system.<\/p>\n

China and the United States are still at the brinkmanship stage, Mr. Kennedy said, each trying to force the other to offer a deal on bended knee. But the spat could become more dangerous if the Trump administration goes after Chinese financial institutions \u2014 for instance, by rescinding the licenses of Chinese banks in the United States or booting them off the international payments system Swift.<\/p>\n

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A screen advertising Apple\u2019s iPhone 16 in Beijing. American companies like Apple have invested heavily in China.<\/span>Credit…<\/span>Kevin Frayer\/Getty Images<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

In pushing back against Mr. Trump\u2019s moves, Beijing has cast itself as a victim of unfair American trade practices and protectionism. The irony is that China has done the same, if not worse, over the decades by limiting foreign investment and subsidizing Chinese firms. <\/p>\n

Mr. Xi himself has made no direct comment about the latest U.S. tariffs. On Wednesday afternoon, though, shortly after they took effect, Chinese state media announced that he gave a speech in a meeting with the other six members of the Politburo Standing Committee, the apex of power in China, as well as other top officials. In it, Mr. Xi called on officials to bolster ties with China\u2019s neighbors and \u201cstrengthen industrial and supply chain cooperation.\u201d<\/p>\n

A spokesman for China\u2019s Foreign Ministry, Lin Jian, did address the new tariffs, saying on Wednesday that China would \u201cnever accept such arrogant and bullying behavior\u201d and would \u201cdefinitely retaliate.\u201d The new tariffs were announced hours later.<\/p>\n

Any fracture between the Chinese and American economies will be felt across the world. Business was the bedrock of the bilateral relationship for nearly five decades. Without it, their engagement on other global issues, like security, climate change and future pandemics and financial crises, would likely stall. <\/p>\n

China has tried to downplay its vulnerability to the economic chaos unleashed by the Trump administration. It says it has reduced its reliance on U.S. markets for its exports and that its economy is getting more self-sufficient, especially when it comes to developing homegrown technologies.<\/p>\n

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New cars parked at a lot in Guangzhou this week. <\/span>Credit…<\/span>Qilai Shen for The New York Times<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

But that papers over serious problems in the Chinese economy, which has been largely stagnant because of a collapse in the property market. Moreover, Mr. Trump\u2019s assault on the global trading system, which includes targeting countries like Vietnam where Chinese companies had opened factories to circumvent earlier U.S. tariffs, strikes at the core of one of China\u2019s only current economic bright spots. <\/p>\n

The fallout from the trade disruption will hurt the United States, which relies on China for all sorts of manufactured goods, but will do more damage to China, said Wang Yuesheng, the director of the Institute of International Economics at Peking University.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe impact on China is mainly that Chinese products have nowhere to go,\u201d Mr. Wang said. That will ravage export-oriented companies making things like furniture, clothing, toys and home appliances along China\u2019s eastern seaboard, which largely exist to serve American consumers. <\/p>\n

\u201cThese companies will be hit very hard,\u201d Mr. Wang said.<\/p>\n

The threat to China\u2019s exports compounds the challenging task of bringing back foreign investment, which has undergone an exodus since the Covid pandemic and the introduction of strict national security laws that made doing business in China increasingly difficult.<\/p>\n

Mr. Xi has tried to woo foreign investors back, hosting a group of executives from overseas last month in Beijing. In a speech, he said China\u2019s development was owed not only to the leadership of the Communist Party, but to the \u201csupport and help of the international community, including the contributions made by foreign-funded enterprises in China.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Xi Jinping, China\u2019s leader, hosted a meeting with foreign business executives at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing last month, encouraging them to invest in China.<\/span>Credit…<\/span>Florence Lo\/Reuters<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

Beijing\u2019s strategy now is to push back at the United States and hope that Mr. Trump succumbs to domestic pressure to reverse course, said Evan Medeiros, a professor of Asian studies at Georgetown University who served as an Asia adviser to President Barack Obama. <\/p>\n

\u201cThey know that if they give in to pressure they will get more pressure,\u201d he said. \u201cThey will resist it with the belief that China can withstand more pain than they can.\u201d<\/p>\n

Until then, China\u2019s leaders appear to be girding the country for a protracted fight. One sign: Influential bloggers have been allowed to weigh in on the crisis and suggest other ways to retaliate against the United States. <\/p>\n

One of them, Ren Yi, a Harvard-educated Chinese blogger who goes by the pen name \u201cChairman Rabbit,\u201d listed six potential countermeasures, including restrictions in China on U.S. service businesses like law firms and consultancy companies; cutting imports of American poultry and soybeans; and ending cooperation with Washington on reducing the flow of fentanyl into the United States. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe trade war,\u201d he wrote, \u201cis not simply an economic friction but a \u2018war without smoke.\u2019 This must be understood from that perspective.\u201d<\/p>\n

Vivian Wang contributed reporting from Beijing and Keith Bradsher from Guangzhou, China. Claire Fu contributed research from Seoul and Siyi Zhao from Beijing.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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A whopping increase in tariffs, followed by a whopping retaliation. Nationalist Chinese bloggers comparing President Trump’s levies to a declaration of war.