US President Donald Trump has ignited a potentially ruinous global trade war after imposing 10% levies on imports from around the world and harsh extra duties on key trading partners.
The commerce ministry in Beijing said in a statement that those tariffs “do not comply with international trade rules and seriously harm the legitimate rights and interests of the relevant parties”.
It urged Washington to “immediately cancel” them, warning they “endanger global economic development”, hurting US interests and international supply chains.
It also accused the US of a “typical unilateral bullying practice”.
Trump unveiled particularly stinging tariffs of 34% on China, one of its largest trading partners, while a 10% base tariff on all countries will also apply to China.
That comes on top of a 20% rate imposed last month.
Beijing responded to those tariffs with levies of up to 15% on a range of US agricultural goods including soybeans, pork and chicken.
Washington’s levies have threatened to harm Beijing’s fragile economic recovery as it struggles with a long-running debt crisis in the property sector and persistently low consumption.
An intensified trade war will likely mean China cannot peg its hopes for strong economic growth this year on its exports, which reached record highs in 2024.
Trump labelled yesterday’s measures “reciprocal” but many experts say his administration’s estimates for levies placed on US imports by other countries are wildly exaggerated.
“The US claims to have suffered losses in international trade, using so-called ‘reciprocity’ as an excuse to raise tariffs on all trade partners,” Beijing said.
“This approach disregards the balance of interests achieved through years of multilateral trade negotiations and ignores the fact that the US has long profited significantly from international trade,” it added.
It instead called for “dialogue” to resolve the dispute.
“There is no winner in a trade war, and there is no way out for protectionism,” it said, adding that “history has proven that raising tariffs does not solve the US’s own problems”.
The US has also imposed tariffs of 25% on steel and aluminium imports.
China is the world’s leading steel manufacturer, though not a major exporter of the product to the US.