Chinese officials called the new tariffs a “mistake on top of a mistake.”
Responding to a threat of 50% additional tariffs from the U.S. unless it eliminated its 34% retaliatory tariffs, Chinese officials vowed to “fight to the end.”
On Monday, U.S. President Donald Trump announced via social media that if China does not withdraw its 34% additional retaliatory tariffs on the U.S. by Tuesday, April 8, the U.S. would impose another 50% tariff on top of the 54% tariffs already set to go into effect. This means China would be facing 104% tariffs on U.S. imports starting April 9.
China’s Ministry of Commerce issued a statement Tuesday, calling the tariffs “groundless” and vowing to fight them.
“The US’s imposition of so-called “reciprocal tariffs” on China is groundless and a typical unilateral bullying practice,” Ministry officials said in a statement. “The countermeasures China has taken are to safeguard its sovereignty, security and development interests and maintain the normal international trade order, which is completely legitimate. The US threat to escalate tariffs on China is a mistake on top of a mistake, which once again exposes the blackmail nature of the US. China will never accept it. If the US insists on its own way, China will fight to the end.”
Ministry of Commerce officials urged the US to cancel all unilateral tariff measures against China and “resolve differences with China through equal dialogue on the basis of mutual respect.”
Bessent calls China’s response a “big mistake”
In an interview on CNBC Tuesday morning, US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent called China’s response a mistake.
“I think it was a big mistake, this Chinese escalation, because they’re playing with a pair of twos,” Bessent said on CNBC, reported Barron’s. “What do we lose by the Chinese raising tariffs on us? We export one-fifth to them of what they export to us, so that is a losing hand for them.”
Bessent told CNBC that some 70 countries have approached the US to negotiate the proposed tariffs.
“Many of our trading partners have queued up and kept their cool and not escalated. They will get priority in the queue,” Bessent said. “You are going to see some very large countries with large trade deficits come forward very quickly.”
Now the markets wait for any further specific countermeasures from China with tariffs set to take effect starting 12:00 a.m. ET on Wednesday.
Stocks were moving higher in pre-market trading, as investors were likely taking an opportunity to buy low after three days of losses. Dow Futures were up more than 1,000 points or 2.8%, while the Nasdaq Composite jumped 400 points or 2.3%. The S&P 500 was up about 124 points or 2.4% in premarket trading.
But as we have seen in recent days, volatility has been extremely high, so investors should be prepared for more of the same, particularly if tariff deals are struck.
