Tariff Showdown: China Retaliates, Slaps US Imports with 125% Duties

By Staff, Agencies

China announced Friday that it will raise tariffs on US goods to 125% but signaled it would no longer respond to any additional US levies, arguing that purchasing American products no longer makes economic sense under the current conditions.

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi criticized the US tariff policy during a meeting in Beijing with Rafael Mariano Grossi, Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency, emphasizing that “the US cannot act recklessly.”

After a volatile week of escalating tariffs between the world’s two largest economies, Beijing shrugged off President Donald Trump's latest pressure tactics, calling the mounting tariffs a "joke" and a "numbers game".

Blaming Washington for global market instability, China declared that the US “should bear full responsibility” for the resulting chaos.

Trump's aggressive tariff strategy—designed to pressure countries and manufacturers to move operations to the US—was met this week with significant market disruption.

Despite his hardline rhetoric, Trump eventually froze many tariffs for 90 days while increasing duties on Chinese imports to a steep 145%.

China’s Finance Ministry responded by announcing its own hike to 125% starting Saturday but added that further American actions would be disregarded.

“At the current tariff level, there is no possibility of market acceptance for US goods exported to China,” the Ministry stated.

A spokesperson from Beijing’s commerce ministry said, “If the US continues to play the tariff numbers game, China will ignore it.”

China’s mission to the World Trade Organization also announced Friday that it had submitted an additional complaint to the WTO in response to the latest US tariff hike.

"On 10 April, the United States issued the Executive Order, announcing a further increase of the so-called 'reciprocal tariff' on Chinese products," the mission said in a statement, quoting a spokesperson from the Ministry of Commerce.

"China filed a WTO complaint against United States’ latest tariff measures," it added.