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Beijing has hit 10 percent new tariffs set by the US on Chinese exports, saying it will “obtain the necessary countermeasures to protect its rights and interests” as trade tensions between the two powers enter a phase new.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs said on Sunday that China opposed the tariffs, which they said were presented “under the pretext of the Fentanile case”.
“SH.BA should see and resolve its issue of Fentanil in an objective and rational way instead of threatening other countries with increasing arbitrary tariffs,” the MFA said.
China’s Ministry of Trade said it would file a lawsuit with the World Trade Organization.
10 percent additional taxes come along with new 25 percent of exports from Canada and Mexico, as President Trump launches an extended trade war, following a series of measures set for China by the US during his first term.
Trump said the influx of “illegal aliens” and drugs, including Fentanil Opium, had created a “national emergency” that justified tariffs.
During last year’s election campaign, he had announced tariffs of up to 60 percent against China, but then signaled a 10 percent rate. He has linked taxes with the role of the country in the course of components or “predecessors” for Fentanil.
China agreed to take action to curb the course of predecessors at a summit between President Xi Jinping and then President Joe Biden in San Francisco in November 2023. Since then, Beijing has taken some actions that were welcomed by the Biden administration, but critics, Including some in the outgoing administration, he wanted China to do much more.
Although widely predicted, measures are an important challenge for the Xi Jinping Government at a time when weaknesses in domestic demand have made it particularly dependent on exports for economic growth. Last year, China’s trade surplus hit a high record near $ 1TN.
Tao Wang, China’s chief of China at UBS Investment Bank, said the tariffs were imposed faster than expected and that the 10 percent blanket rate was wider than stages under Trump’s first administration.
“This is wider and is much larger than the first round,” she said, adding that he was expecting Trump to add more tariffs after his officials ended a commercial policy review in April.
Wang said she was expecting a hit on China’s GDP of 0.3 to 0.4 percent.
In a report published last week, Morningsar said 10 percent tariffs would affect home appliances, home furnishings, lithium batteries and electric vehicles in China. But she added that many companies “are likely to see an impact of less than 5 percent of their total relevant revenue” and that they “may not be as bad as they are afraid of some industries”.
Beijing also faces commercial tensions with the EU on the tariffs imposed on its electric vehicles last summer, which led to a wave of countermeasures on cognac products to dairy.
