China in a swift response on Tuesday retaliated against fresh US tariffs, announcing 10 percent – 15 percent hikes to import levies covering a range of American agricultural and food products.
This retaliation moves the world’s top two economies a step closer toward an all-out trade war.
In the same manner, Beijing placed twenty five US firms under export and investment restrictions on national security grounds, but refrained from punishing any household names, as it did when it retaliated against the Trump administration’s February 4 tariffs.
Ten out of the 25 US firms were targeted by China for selling arms to Taiwan, which China claims as its own territory.
China’s latest retaliatory tariffs came as the extra 10 percent duty US President Donald Trump threatened China with last week entered into force at 0501 GMT on March 4, resulting in a cumulative 20 percent tariff in response to what the White House considers Chinese inaction over drug flows.
China has accused the US of fentanyl blackmail and it has some of the toughest anti-drug policies in the world.
The new US tariffs represent an additional hike to preexisting levies on thousands of Chinese goods.
Some of the products bore the brunt of sharply higher US tariffs under former president Joe Biden last year, including a doubling of duties on Chinese semiconductors to 50 percent and a quadrupling of tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles to over 100 percent.
The 20 percent tariff will apply to several major US consumer electronics imports from China that were previously untouched, including smartphones, laptops, videogame consoles, smartwatches and speakers and Bluetooth devices.
China responded immediately after the deadline, announcing that it would impose an additional 15 percent tariff on US chicken, wheat, corn and cotton and an extra 10 percent levy on US soybeans, sorghum, pork, beef, aquatic products, fruits and vegetables and dairy imports from March 10.
“The US’s unilateral tariffs measures seriously violate World Trade Organization rules and undermine the basis for economic and trade cooperation between China and the US,” China’s commerce ministry said in a separate statement.