U.S. President Donald Trump on Friday announced a fresh round of 100% tariff on Chinese imports, reigniting tensions in the long-run trade dispute between Washington and Beijing.
Trump said the new tariffs — along with U.S. export restrictions on “any and all critical software” — would take effect from November 1. He described the move as retaliation for what he called China’s “extraordinarily aggressive” actions over export curbs on rare earth minerals.
“It is impossible to believe that China would have taken such an action, but they have, and the rest is History,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.
The announcement rattled global markets, with the Nasdaq falling 3.6% and the S&P 500 dropping 2.7% as investors reacted to the escalation of trade hostilities.
Currently, Chinese imports face a 30% U.S. tariff under measures imposed by Trump, who has repeatedly accused Beijing of unfair trade practices and aiding the fentanyl crisis. China’s retaliatory tariffs stand at around 10%.
Trump’s latest remarks came hours after a lengthy Truth Social post in which he claimed Beijing had sent letters to governments worldwide outlining new export controls on rare earth minerals — key materials used in smartphones, electric vehicles, military technology, and renewable energy systems.
“There is no way that China should be allowed to hold the world ‘captive’,” Trump wrote, calling Beijing’s actions ‘very hostile’.
The U.S. president also questioned whether his planned meeting with Xi at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit later this month would still go ahead.
“I was to meet President Xi in two weeks at APEC, in South Korea. But now there seems to be no reason to do so,” he wrote. It would have been their first meeting since Trump returned to office in January. Beijing is yet to issue an official response.
Trump expressed confusion over China’s timing, saying, “Some very strange things are happening in China! They are becoming very hostile.” He added that other countries had reached out to Washington to express concern over Beijing’s “great trade hostility, which came out of nowhere.”
The president accused China of “lying in wait” despite what he described as six months of positive engagement — including progress on transferring control of TikTok’s U.S. operations under a law passed by Congress last year.
The renewed trade flare-up comes just weeks after Trump emphasised the importance of his planned talks with Xi and said he intended to visit China next year.
Washington and Beijing were previously locked in a tit-for-tat tariffs battle earlier this year that nearly froze bilateral trade before both sides agreed to a fragile truce.
Last week, Trump said he planned to press Xi on increasing U.S. soybean imports — a key issue for American farmers, a major voting bloc in his 2024 election victory.
Meanwhile, China has also announced that it would impose “special port fees” on ships built or operated by U.S. companies, in response to Washington’s earlier decision to levy charges on Chinese-linked vessels in April.
In a related move, the U.S. Federal Communications Commission said it had removed “millions” of listings for banned Chinese devices from online marketplaces.
“The Communist Party of China is engaged in a multi-prong effort to insert insecure devices into Americans’ homes and businesses,” FCC Chair Brendan Carr wrote on X.
