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Kathmandu. China said on Tuesday it would impose a 15 percent tariff on coal and liquefied natural gas imported from the United States in retaliation for a 10 percent tariff on Chinese goods.
Beijing’s Finance Ministry also announced a 10 percent tariff on imports of crude oil, agricultural machinery, large-displacement vehicles and pickup trucks from the United States. Beijing said the new measures were in response to Washington’s “unilateral tariff hike” over the weekend. US President Donald Trump announced sweeping measures against major trading partners including Canada and Mexico on Saturday.
Goods from China will be subject to an additional 10 percent tariff on top of the tariffs they already face. Trump said the measures were aimed at punishing countries that have failed to stop illegal immigration and the flow of drugs, including fentanyl, into the United States. However, Trump has already decided to suspend tariffs on Mexico and Canada. The Trump administration has suspended conditional tariffs on Canada and Mexico, the Trump administration said.
China said, “The US action seriously violates World Trade Organization rules, does nothing to solve its own problems, and disrupts normal economic and trade cooperation between China and the United States.” Beijing’s announcement of the tariffs, which will take effect next Monday, comes shortly after Trump said he would speak to President Xi Jinping by phone within the next 24 hours.
US deal with Canada, Mexico
Mexican President Claudia Schiffer and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau have both previously reached last-minute deals with Trump, proposing tough border measures against immigrants and fentanyl. This has put a 30-day pause on threatened tariffs. Asian stock markets rose on Tuesday on news of a tariff break, while hopes that talks could reduce tariffs on China, the world’s second-largest economy, added to optimism. However, traders pared some of those gains after China announced its measures.
Global stock markets fell on Monday after Trump’s threat to impose 25 percent tariffs on imports from Canada and Mexico sparked fears of a global trade war. Trump said he would “immediately stop” tariffs on Mexico after “very friendly” talks with Sinbaum and that his counterpart had agreed to send 10,000 troops to the US-Mexico border.
Tensions between the United States and Canada appear to have increased. But after two calls with Trudeau, Trump wrote on Twitter that “the Prime Minister has agreed to ensure a secure northern border with us and finally end the deadly scourge of drugs like fentanyl.” Trudeau said Canada would deploy about 10,000 frontline officers to secure the border, designate drug cartels as terrorists, appoint a “fentanyl czar” and crack down on money laundering. The exact extent of the changes to the Canadian border was unclear, as officials said they had already deployed 8,500 personnel in December. Canada, China and Mexico are the United States’ three largest trading partners.
The White House had already said there were “a lot of talks” over the weekend. “This is not a trade war, this is a war on drugs,” National Economic Council director Kevin Hassett told CNBC. “It seems like Canadians don’t understand the clear language.” However, US government figures show that only minimal amounts of drugs enter Canada.
Ottawa had promised a strong response to the tariffs. Canadians have protested the US national anthem at sporting events, cancelled holidays in the United States and boycotted American products. Its most populous province, Ontario, on Monday banned American companies from bidding on tens of billions of dollars in government contracts and cancelled a deal with Trump ally Elon Musk for Starlink. Trump has recently stepped up pressure, questioning Canada’s very existence.
On Monday, he again advocated for it to become the 51st US state. A political crisis in the Canadian government over Trump’s tariff threat has led Trudeau to announce his resignation. Canadians now face an election in early April. Meanwhile, Trump has vowed to crack down on undocumented immigrants and put pressure on Mexico to secure its border with the United States.
President Trump, who calls the word “tariff” “the most beautiful word in the dictionary,” is imposing higher tariffs in his second term than in his first. He has insisted that the impact will not be felt by American consumers and will be borne by foreign exporters, despite what most experts say. However, the 78-year-old billionaire president acknowledged on Sunday that Americans could feel the economic “pain” as he returned from his Florida resort.
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