China retaliates with levies on US coal and goods
Experts say trade war has likely just begun
By: Kim Hjelmgaard
USA today
..... President Donald Trump planned to speak with Chinese President Xi Jimping on Tuesday [02/04/2025] top trade official said after China said it would impose fresh tariffs on U.S. imports in swift retaliation to new U.S. duties that came into effect on Chinese goods.
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China's finance ministry said it will impose levies of 15% for U.S. coal and 10% for crude oil, farm equipment and some cars, and the tariffs will go into effect February 10. [2025] The announcement came just minutes after an additional 10% tariff across all Chinese imports into the U.S. came into effect Tuesday. [02/04/2025]
..... Asked about how American consumers and companies should understand the new tariffs at a Tuesday [02/04/2025] Politico Live event, Peter Navarro, Trump's senior counselor for trade and manufacturing, said, "Let's see what happens with the call today." [02/04/2025]
..... Tensions between Beijing and Washington come amid the effective renewal of a trade war between the world's top two economies that began in 2018 during Trump's first term.
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The latest levies also follow Trump's offer in a series of last-minute phone calls to give 30-day reprieves on proposed tariffs to Mexico and Canada, the two largest trading partners for the U.S.
..... But whether China could receive a similar reprieve was "up to the boss," Navarro said at the Tuesday [02/04/2025] event, referring to Trump. "I never get ahead of the boss."
..... If the plan to impose tariffs remains in place, Navarro said, they would be implemented in a "measured way" that will "benefit the American people." The administration would "recalibrate" tariffs Trump imposed during his first term, he said.
..... But in the end, it would be up to Trump.
..... "We're going to let him do his thing," Navarro said, "because by now, it's trust in Trump."
..... Tariffs are essentially taxes charged on goods imported from another country. They are typically set at a percentage of the goods,' value and usually paid by the importer. The extra costs are generally passed on to the consumer.
..... Trump has repeatedly said the Chinese tariffs are needed because Beijing is not doing enough to halt the flow of illicit drugs like fentanyl, a deadly opioid, into the U.S. china disputes this.
..... "china hopefully is going to stop sending us fentanyl, and if they're not, the tariffs are going to go substantially higher," Trump said on Monday. [01/03/2025]
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Trump has acknowledged that Americans could feel "some pain" from his tariffs.
..... China has called fentanyl America's problem and said it would challenge the tariffs at the World Trade Organization and take other countermeasures, but also left the door open for talks. The U.S. is a relatively small source of crude oil for China, accounting for 1.7% of tis imports last year, [2024] worth about $6 billion.
..... Trump initiated the trade war with China in his first term because or China's massive U.S. trade surplus. It fit with his "American First" agenda. The resulting tit-for-tat tariffs on hundreds of billions of dollars worth of goods upended global supply chains and damaged the world economy.
..... Former President Joe Biden kept some of those tariffs in place and even increased some of them, through his administration targeted China's technology sector.
..... As part of its Tuesday [02/04/2025] announcement, China's foreign ministry said it was starting an anti-monopoly investigation into Alphabet Incorporated's Google. It also included PVH Corporation, the holding company for brands including Calvin Klein, and U.S. biotech company Illumina, on its "unreliable entities list," a designation that can damage a firm's competitiveness by subjecting it to fines for foreign employees to get visas. China;s commerce ministry accused the firms of "discriminatory measures against Chinese enterprises," without elaborating.
Contributing: Reuters.