CHINA: China to increase tariffs on US goods to 125 per cent, up from 84 per cent

China will impose 125 per cent tariffs on US goods up from the 84 per cent previously announced, the finance ministry says.

The new tariffs will start from Saturday, Chinese local time.

China says US tariffs defy “basic economic laws and common sense”.

In his first public comments about the US-China trade war, President Xi Jinping said there are “no winners” in a tariff war.

He called on China and the European Union to jointly oppose unilateral bullying, a reference to Mr Trump’s tariff regime, while meeting with the Spanish Prime Minister in Beijing.

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said Beijing and Washington needed to hold talks to defuse the situation, and he also called for a more balanced relationship between Beijing and the 27-nation EU, which has its own trade issues with China.

“China has always regarded the EU as an important pole in a multipolar world, and is one of the major countries firmly supporting the EU’s unity and growth,” Mr Xi told Mr Sanchez during their talks, according to the Xinhua news agency.

“China and the EU should fulfil their international responsibilities, jointly safeguard the trend of economic globalisation and the international trade environment, and jointly oppose unilateral acts of bullying,” Xi added.

The White House clarified earlier that Donald Trump’s announcement of 125 per cent import taxes on Chinese goods is in addition to earlier tariffs — bringing the total since he was inaugurated less than three months ago to 145 per cent.

The 125 per cent figure did not account for the 20 per cent tariff placed on China earlier this year, ostensibly to punish it for doing too little to stop fentanyl shipments to the US.

Mr Trump has said he was hopeful of making a deal with President Xi.

“He’s been a friend of mine for a long period of time, and I think that we’ll end up working out something that’s very good for both countries,” Mr Trump said.

China says US tariffs ‘will become a joke’
China blasted the US president’s tariffs as a “numbers game” that “will become a joke”, in the finance ministry’s statement.

A spokesperson for Beijing’s commerce ministry said it has “become a numbers game with no practical significance in economics”.

US President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping walk away from each other at a G20 summit in Japan, 2019.

“It will only further expose the United States’s bullying and coercion. It will become a joke.”

“China will resolutely counter and fight to the end.”
It added that the US “should bear full responsibility” for any global turbulence or tariff war.

What is a tariff?
A tariff is a tax on a product imported from another country
It is paid to the government by the company that imports the product
A tariff is generally calculated as a percentage of the price paid by the importer to the foreign seller
Historically, tariffs have pushed up prices because higher product costs are often passed on to consumers
China’s mission to the World Trade Organization (WTO) said on Friday it had filed an additional complaint to the trade body over US tariffs.

“On 10 April, the United States issued the Executive Order, announcing a further increase of the so-called ‘reciprocal tariff’ on Chinese products, China filed a WTO complaint against United States’ latest tariff measures,” the statement from China’s mission said.

“Reciprocal tariffs” and countermeasures could have a catastrophic impact, even worse than foreign aid cuts, on developing countries, the director of the United Nation’s trade agency Rebeca Grynspan said.

Global trade could shrink by 3-7 per cent and global GDP by 0.7 per cent, with developing countries the worst affected, the International Trade Centre said.

Pamela Coke-Hamilton, executive director of the International Trade Centre said this burgeoning war could have a “catastrophic” impact on developing countries.

“If this escalation between China and the US continues it will result in an 80 per cent reduction in trade between the countries, and the ripple effect of that across the board can be catastrophic,” she said.