China urges US to immediately lift tariffs, vows retaliation

Joe Cash, Xiuhao Chen and Liz Lee

Wed, Apr 2, 2025, 7:18 PM 4 min read

By Joe Cash, Xiuhao Chen and Liz Lee

BEIJING (Reuters) - China connected Thursday urged the United States to instantly cancel its latest tariffs and vowed countermeasures to safeguard its ain interests, aft President Donald Trump declared sweeping levies connected each U.S. trading partners astir the world.

The U.S. determination disregards the equilibrium of interests reached successful multilateral commercialized negotiations implicit the years and the information that it has agelong benefited greatly from planetary trade, the Chinese commerce ministry said successful a statement.

"China firmly opposes this and volition instrumentality countermeasures to safeguard its ain rights and interests," the ministry said, arsenic the world's largest economies look acceptable to spiral deeper into a commercialized warfare that stands to upend planetary proviso chains.

Trump connected Wednesday announced China would beryllium deed with a 34% tariff, connected apical of the 20% helium antecedently imposed earlier this year, bringing the full caller levies to 54% and adjacent to the 60% fig helium had threatened portion connected the run trail.

Chinese exporters, arsenic with those from each different economy, volition look a 10% baseline tariff, arsenic portion of the caller 34% levy, connected astir each goods shipped to the world's largest user system from Saturday earlier the remaining, higher "reciprocal tariffs" instrumentality effect from April 9.

Trump besides signed an enforcement bid closing a commercialized loophole known arsenic "de minimis" that has allowed low-value packages from China and Hong Kong to participate the U.S. work free.

WORLDWIDE TARIFFS

"Arguably, President Trump's tariffs elsewhere volition origin the astir headaches," said Ruby Osman, a China adept astatine the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change.

"Chinese firms person been rerouting commercialized done places similar Vietnam and Mexico to debar U.S. sanctions, but these markets are present being deed with important tariffs of their own."

"China+1" strategies caught connected among Chinese exporters and multinational companies that had made the accumulation powerhouse cardinal to their proviso chains during Trump's archetypal term, but with India, Mexico, Vietnam and Malaysia - the countries that benefited astir from this displacement - facing tariffs of betwixt 24% to 46%, the outgo vantage of relocating manufacturing retired of China is importantly diminished.

Trump's tariffs could promote China to measurement up its commercialized with alternate markets, but nary different state presently comes adjacent adjacent to U.S. depletion power, wherever Chinese producers merchantability much than $400 cardinal worthy of goods annually.

"Trump's tariffs surely won't assistance Chinese firms and volition origin immoderate existent symptom successful immoderate sectors, but they don't marque immoderate definitive people connected the Chinese economy," said William Hurst, Chong Hua Professor of Chinese Development astatine the University of Cambridge.