Beijing has slammed Donald Trump’s plan to impose additional 100 per cent tariffs on Chinese exports and threatened new countermeasures as it blamed the US for escalating tensions between the world’s two biggest economies.
The commerce ministry said on Sunday that since the two countries held trade talks in Madrid last month, the US had “continuously introduced a series of new restrictions against China”, including putting Chinese companies on a trade blacklist.
“China’s position on tariff wars has been consistent: we do not want to fight, but we are not afraid to fight,” the ministry added.
On Friday, the US president said that he would impose “large scale” export controls on “virtually every product they make” including “all critical software”, alongside the new tariffs.
He added that the new measures would be imposed on or before November 1.
“Threatening to impose high tariffs at every turn is not the right way to engage with China,” the commerce ministry said. “Should the US persist in its course, China will resolutely take corresponding measures to safeguard its legitimate rights and interests.”
Trump’s threat followed a volley of trade measures by China over the past two days that expanded its export controls on rare earths and related technologies, as well as equipment and materials for making batteries.
Beijing also launched an antitrust investigation into US chipmaker Qualcomm and imposed fees on American-owned ships docking at Chinese ports.
Beijing’s actions this week appeared intended to exert leverage ahead of an expected face-to-face meeting between Trump and Xi in South Korea. Trump on Friday cast doubt on whether the meeting would go ahead but later said they would probably meet.
Beijing said on Sunday that the impact on supply chains would be “extremely limited” and insisted companies “need not worry”, saying any applications for civilian use that comply with regulations would be approved.
The commerce ministry added that the US side had for a long time “abused export controls” and overstretched the concept of national security.
Trump’s statement, issued via his Truth Social media platform, risks ending the détente that has been in place in the US-China trade war since a truce reached in Geneva in May.
Before that, the two countries were locked in a virtual trade embargo after Trump hit Beijing with 145 per cent tariffs and Xi retaliated with 125 per cent levies on goods coming from the US.
Feng Chucheng, a Beijing-based founding partner at Hutong Research, an independent advisory, said that following the Madrid talks, both sides had seemed keen to avoid escalation ahead of the proposed Xi-Trump meeting in late October.
However, that changed after the US decision in September to tighten export controls on Chinese companies to make it harder to circumvent rules designed to slow China’s ability to develop advanced semiconductors.
Beijing has also opposed Washington’s decision to increase fees for China-built vessels visiting US ports.
“From Xi’s perspective, these actions are not only substantive escalations but further confirmation of low credibility of the Trump administration,” Feng said.
He added that Beijing was reactivating a playbook used after Trump’s initial tariffs in April, “escalating first to force a negotiation reset, rather than waiting passively for the next talks”.
Wang Dong, executive director of the Institute for Global Cooperation and Understanding at Peking University, said Trump’s “surprise” at being hit with the new controls reflected the previous US mentality that it could impose tariffs on China with impunity.
“At the minimum, there is a deep-rooted sense of arrogance and self-righteousness on the US side,” Wang said. He said China was turning the tables and creating a more level field for “great power bargaining”.
Wang Yiwei, an international relations scholar at Renmin University in Beijing, said China’s trade with the US was diminishing in favour of countries in the global south and those participating in the Belt and Road Initiative infrastructure scheme.
China’s retaliatory measures were aimed at telling the US to return “to stable trade relations and not play a game any more”, he said.
The White House, US Trade Representative and Treasury did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Yanmei Xie, a senior associate fellow with the Mercator Institute for China Studies, said while the US had leverage on trade, and both countries were exposed to the other’s export controls, China might have the “upper hand” when it came to the corporate sector.
“There are way more American companies producing in China than the other way around, and some of them, like Apple and Tesla, are the crown jewel of corporate America,” she said.
Cory Combs, associate director of Beijing-based consultancy Trivium China, said Trump’s latest escalation, including threatening to walk away from talks with Xi, might spark a recalibration from Beijing.
“Realistically I think Beijing is rapidly adjusting the approach — and perhaps the leadership does not even know exactly what is next,” he said.
Additional contributions by Wang Xueqiao in Shanghai
