China has announced it would raise tariffs on all United States goods to 125 percent, further deepening a trade war between the world’s two largest economies.
“The US’s imposition of abnormally high tariffs on China seriously violates international trade rules, basic economic laws and common sense,” Beijing’s State Council Tariff Commission said in a statement announcing the retaliatory tariffs on Friday.
The new levy will take effect on Saturday, the statement said.
China and the US have been engaged in a tit-for-tat tariff war, with US President Donald Trump imposing more tariffs on Beijing earlier this week, even as he put a pause on tariffs for other nations after US markets reacted negatively to the decision.
Trump’s universal tariffs on China now total 145 percent. When he announced on Wednesday that China faced 125 percent tariffs, he did not include a 20 percent tariff on China tied to its role in fentanyl production.
Meanwhile, China’s Ministry of Commerce has announced it was filing a new lawsuit with the World Trade Organization (WTO) challenging the US tariffs, adding that the US is to blame for the global economic “turbulence” unleashed by Trump.
Washington’s levies “(caused) the current world economy, global markets and multilateral trading systems to suffer serious shocks and severe turbulence”, a ministry spokesperson said. “The US should bear full responsibility for this.”
The ministry urged the US to “take a big step forward in eliminating the so-called ‘reciprocal tariffs’ and completely correct its wrongful practices”.
“The US alternately raising abnormally high tariffs on China has become a numbers game, which has no practical economic significance, and will become a joke in the history of the world economy,” a spokesman said.
“However, if the US insists on continuing to substantially infringe on China’s interests, China will resolutely counter and fight to the end,” the spokesman added.
‘Pretty strong’ statements
Al Jazeera’s Katrina Yu, reporting from Beijing, described the statements from Chinese officials as “pretty strong”.
But our correspondent also pointed out that Beijing is offering an “off-ramp” for a dialogue with Trump, noting that China “continues to be open to consultation”.
“However, threats and pressure are not the way. So China is saying it does have a door open,” she said. “But it does seem that as long as the Trump administration continues to impose these high tariffs, which Beijing perceives as coercion, then that is a non-starter for a true dialogue and a possibility of a true deal.”
Karl Widerquist, a professor at Georgetown University in Qatar, told Al Jazeera that he expects the trade war between China and the US to quickly drive inflation up.
He explained that US consumers may already be rushing to buy goods even before the tariffs take effect, thus driving up demand and resulting in retailers raising prices.
