China Retaliates With 84 Percent Tariffs on US Goods

Beijing said that the rules will be enforced from April 10 midday local time, at 12:01 a.m. ET.

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

China’s finance ministry has announced an additional 84 percent tariff on all goods imported from the United States, set to take effect on Thursday.

On April 9, the Chinese communist regime said that these rules would be enforced from midday, Beijing time (12:01 a.m. ET), on April 10. The 84 percent tariff replaces the previously announced 34 percent tariff.

On April 2, U.S. President Donald Trump announced a minimum 10 percent tariff on all trading partners, as well as higher levies on about 60 nations identified by the administration as “worst offenders” in trade imbalances with the United States, including an additional 34 percent tariff on China.

When China responded with tit-for-tat 34 percent retaliatory levies on U.S. goods, Trump imposed an extra 50 percent on the Chinese regime, amounting to 104 percent total tariffs on Chinese imports, which came into effect from 12:01 a.m. ET on Wednesday.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent on Wednesday morning criticized China’s retaliation.

“I think it’s unfortunate that the Chinese actually don’t want to come and negotiate, because they are the worst offenders in the international trading system,” Bessent said in an interview with Fox Business Network.

He said that the “proportionality for the Chinese is going to be much worse.”

He said that a very good step for the Chinese would be “acknowledging that the precursor chemicals for fentanyl come from China.”

When asked if he was prepared to remove Chinese stocks from U.S. exchanges, Bessent said “everything is on the table.”

“The U.S. is trying to rebalance toward more manufacturing. China needs to rebalance towards more consumption,” he said.

Bessent also warned Beijing not to devalue its currency.

“If China starts devaluing, then that is a tax on the rest of the world and everyone will have to keep raising their tariffs to offset the devaluation. So I would urge them not to do that and to come to the table,” he said.

Later on Wednesday, China’s commerce ministry slapped restrictions on U.S. technology companies.

Beijing added the 12 U.S. companies to a control list that prohibits exports of dual-use items, allowing Beijing to take punitive actions against foreign entities.

It said that any ongoing related export activities must be immediately stopped.

The 12 U.S. entities included in the export control list are American Photonics, Novotech, Echodyne, Marvin Engineering Company, Exovera, Teledyne Brown Engineering, BRINC Drones, SYNEXXUS, Firestorm Labs, Kratos Unmanned Aerial Systems, Domo Tactical Communications, and Insitu.

The most recent round of trade restrictions is mainly targeted at U.S. companies that supply the Pentagon and federal government agencies, adding to the 60 U.S. companies Beijing has already targeted over Trump’s tariffs on China, the first of which took effect in February.

On April 5, Beijing said 11 U.S. companies, including Skydio and BRINC Drones, were added to its “unreliable entities” list. The regime said it holds the 11 entities accountable for military technology cooperation with Taiwan.

The Trump administration on March 25 added dozens of Chinese companies to a trade blacklist, restricting Beijing’s ability to access advanced U.S. technology.

Among those blacklisted are six subsidiaries of Inspur Group, a top Chinese cloud service provider. Commerce Department officials determined that the subsidiary companies had aided Inspur in developing supercomputers intended for military use and attempting to acquire U.S. technology to support Beijing’s supercomputer projects.

“We will not allow adversaries to exploit American technology to bolster their own militaries and threaten American lives,” U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said in a statement at the time.

Reuters contributed to this report.