China has just one day to back down from their threatened response to tariffs or face a dramatic escalation of fees on exports to the U.S. that could reach over 100%, President Donald Trump said Monday.
Even as the stock markets danced up and down to start the first full week since Trump’s “Liberation Day” announcement, the president threatened to more than double his already-released plan to tax U.S. imports from China at an increased rate of 34%, if they carry through with a plan to respond in kind.
“Yesterday, China issued Retaliatory Tariffs of 34%, on top of their already record setting Tariffs, Non-Monetary Tariffs, Illegal Subsidization of companies, and massive long term Currency Manipulation, despite my warning that any country that Retaliates against the U.S. by issuing additional Tariffs, above and beyond their already existing long term Tariff abuse of our Nation, will be immediately met with new and substantially higher Tariffs, over and above those initially set,” Trump wrote via his Truth Social media platform, capitalization his.
If China does not back down on Tuesday (Trump did not specify by what time), the president said he would impose an “additional” tariffs on goods from China of 50%, to begin on April 9, and that “all talks with China concerning their requested meetings with us will be terminated.”
If Trump implements his new taxes on imports from China, U.S. tariffs on Chinese goods would reach a combined 104%.
Several of the other countries facing tariffs — about 50 so far, according to the Trump administration — have reached out to work on a compromise, which “will begin taking place immediately,” he wrote.
China’s tariff announcement came on Friday, and in addition to the 34% tax on all imported U.S. goods, the Chinese government declared it would suspend imports of bonemeal, poultry, and sorghum from half-a-dozen U.S. sellers, begin an anti-monopoly investigation into DuPont Chemical’s Chinese operations, and add more than two dozen American firms to a list of companies already facing trade restrictions.
The announcement came after Trump unilaterally declared that all foreign goods entering the U.S. would face “minimum baseline tariffs,” and that countries which sell more products into the U.S. than Americans buy from them would face even harsher duties.
Despite subsequent market turmoil, during which U.S. investors apparently lost more than $6 trillion in value, the White House maintains that the president is “finally doing what politicians have refused to do for decades — fighting back against the one-sided war waged on American workers.”
“As he puts into action his bold plan to reverse the decades of globalization that has decimated our industrial base, President Trump is putting the Forgotten Men and Women of America first. There’s a reason groups like the United Auto Workers, the Steel Manufacturers Association, the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association, the Southern Shrimp Alliance, and the National Council of Textile Organizations have all praised President Trump’s policy,” the White House wrote.
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