China Retaliates With 34 Percent Tariffs on US Goods

The tariffs will come into effect from April 10.
China Retaliates With 34 Percent Tariffs on US Goods
A truck passes by China dhipping containers at the Port of Los Angeles, in Long Beach, Calif. on Sept. 1, 2019. Mark Ralston/AFP via Getty Images
Guy Birchall
Updated:
0:00

China announced a raft of additional tariffs and restrictions against American goods on Friday, in retaliation of the sweeping tariffs imposed by the United States.

Beijing said that from April 10, it would impose additional tariffs of 34 percent on all American products.

The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) also unveiled controls on exports of medium and heavy rare-earths, including samarium, gadolinium, terbium, dysprosium, lutetium, scandium, and yttrium to the United States, effective from Friday.

As part of the retaliation measures, the Ministry of Commerce added 11 companies to its “unreliable entities list,” including drone manufacturer Skydio and artificial intelligence startup HavocAI.

According to a statement from the ministry, these companies will face restrictions prohibiting them from engaging in import and export activities and from making investments in China.

Beijing also placed 16 U.S. companies on its export-control list, the ministry said in a separate statement.

On top of the tariffs, China also filed a formal complaint against the Trump administration’s tariffs with the World Trade Organization (WTO) on Friday, saying the measures violate the organization’s rules.

“China has filed the WTO complaint with respect to the United States’ measures,” the Permanent Mission of China to the World Trade Organization said in a statement.

U.S. President Donald Trump on Wednesday announced that China would be hit with a 34 percent tariff, on top of the 20 percent he imposed earlier this year, bringing the total to 54 percent, just a few points shy of the 60 percent he touted while on the campaign trail.

China had previously urged the United States to immediately cancel its latest round of tariffs.

On Friday, following the news out of Beijing, Trump wrote in a post on his Truth Social platform, using all caps: “China played it wrong, they panicked—the one thing they cannot afford to do!”

The WTO Secretariat confirmed on Friday that it had received the request for consultations from China.

Bilateral consultations are the first stage of formal dispute settlement and, if no solution is found within 60 days, China could request adjudication by the WTO’s Dispute Settlement Body.

Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, director-general of the WTO, said in a statement discussing the tariffs more broadly on Thursday: “The WTO Secretariat is closely monitoring and analyzing the measures announced by the United States on April 2, 2025. Many members have reached out to us, and we are actively engaging with them in response to their questions about the potential impact on their economies and the global trading system.”

Responding to questions about the tariffs, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Friday rejected notions of an economic crash, telling reporters that markets were reacting to the change and would adjust.

“Their economies are not crashing. Their markets are reacting to a dramatic change in the global order in terms of trade,” he said at a press conference in Brussels. “The markets will adjust.”

Investment bank JP Morgan, however, said it now sees a 60 percent chance of the global economy entering recession by year-end, up from the 40 percent chance it had previously stated.

The bank’s chief economist, Bruce Kasman, said in a note titled, “There will be blood,” that this year’s 22 percent tariff increase amounts to the largest tax hike since 1968.

“The effect of this tax hike is likely to be magnified—through retaliation, a slide in U.S. business sentiment, and supply chain disruptions. The shock is likely to be only modestly dampened by the flexibility tariff hikes afford for further fiscal policy easing,” the note stated.

Reuters contributed to this report.
Guy Birchall is a UK-based journalist covering a wide range of national stories with a particular interest in freedom of expression and social issues.