China hiked its levies on imports of US goods to 125% on Friday, hitting back at Donald Trump’s decision to single out the world’s No 2 economy for higher duties, while dismissing the US president’s tariff strategy as “a joke.”
Investors had been waiting to see how Beijing would respond to Trump’s move on Wednesday to effectively raise tariffs on Chinese goods to 145% while announcing a 90-day pause on duties on dozens of other countries’ goods. The yuan slipped to levels last seen during the global financial crisis on Thursday but rebounded slightly on Friday.
“The US. side’s imposition of excessively high tariffs on China seriously violates international economic and trade rules, runs counter to basic economic principles and common sense, and is simply an act of unilateral bullying and coercion,” China’s Finance Ministry said in a statement.
The tit-for-tat increases stand to make goods trade between the world’s two largest economies impossible, analysts say, with import duties above around 35% wiping out Chinese exporters’ profit margins and making American offerings in China similarly overly expensive.
Beijing indicated on Friday that this would be the last time it matched the US, in the event that Trump takes his tariffs any higher.
“Even if the US continues to impose even higher tariffs, it would no longer have any economic significance and would go down as a joke in the history of world economics,” the Finance Ministry’s statement added.
“If the US continues to play a numbers game with tariffs, China will not respond,” it added. However it left the door open for Beijing to turn to other types of retaliation, reiterating that China would fight the US to the end.
On Thursday, Beijing said it would immediately restrict imports of Hollywood films in response to Trump’s tariff increases. Earlier this week, China focused its sights on US services exports, issuing a travel advisory for citizens visiting the US and an alert for students considering studying in the US state of Ohio.
UBS analysts said in a note that China’s declaration that it would not retaliate in kind against any further tariff increases was “an acknowledgement that trade between the two countries has essentially been completely severed”.
Both sides now tax 100% of each other’s goods, after China increased the percentage of two-way trade it subjects to taxes from 63% on April 9, following the US broadening the scope of its duties from 67% in February.
Average US tariffs on Chinese exports now stand at 135%, according to the Peterson Institute for International Economics, more than 40 times higher than before the first US-China trade war kicked off in 2018.
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