China fires back with 34 per cent tariffs on American goods

Singapore: China has fired back with a 34 per cent tariff on all American goods, matching the Trump administration’s latest salvo in an escalating trade war that has triggered worldwide backlash, savaged stockmarkets and intensified fears of a global recession.

China announced the across-the-board tariffs on Friday evening, effective from April 10, along with a series of other measures, including adding 11 more American companies to a trade blacklist that bans them from investing in China or trading with Chinese companies.

The Commerce Ministry in Beijing also said in a notice that it will impose more export controls on rare earths, which are materials used in high-tech products such as computer chips and electric vehicle batteries.

Beijing’s response, its most comprehensive to date in the ratcheting tit-for-tat tariff exchange, signals it has no intention of surrendering to US President Donald Trump’s punitive trade measures.

The much vaunted prospect of a meeting between Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping, which the US President himself favoured doing within his early months in office, has faded from view as the trade tensions have ramped up.

China’s response comes one day after the US imposed additional 34 per cent sweeping tariffs on Chinese imports, adding to the 20 per cent imposed earlier this year, as part of the US president’s “Liberation Day” rampage that spared no nation, including Australia, which was hit with 10 per cent tariffs on its US-bound imports.

It is the first time that Beijing has retaliated with across-the-board tariffs, having until now preferring to target select industries and goods for additional duties in response to Trump’s previous tariff announcements.