Trump threatens 100% tariffs on China, escalating trade war fears.
Beijing calls US move “double standards,” warns against economic aggression.
Rare earths remain key friction point in US–China trade talks.
Tariff threat marks sharpest escalation since 2018 trade conflict.
After issuing threats of an additional 100 per cent tariff on China, US President Donald Trump said on Sunday that it wants to hurt the world’s second-largest economy and help them.
Traders feared that trade war could be reignited between China and US as Trump’s statements on Friday as well as his threat to cancel a meeting with Xi later this month.
Writing a post on Truth Social on Sunday, Trump said, "The USA wants to help China, not hurt it!!!" while adding that "respected President Xi (Jinping)... doesn't want Depression for his country." He further said, “Don’t worry about China, it will all be fine!”
Before this remark, on Friday, the US President said that he would impose the extra levies from November 1 in response to what he called "extraordinarily aggressive" new Chinese export curbs on the rare-earths industry.
In response to that, Beijing accused Washington of acting unfairly, with its Ministry of Commerce calling Trump's tariff threat a "typical example of 'double standards.'"
In addition to that, the ministry said Washington had ratcheted up economic measures against Beijing since September.
Further in an online statement, the ministry noted, "Threatening high tariffs at every turn is not the right approach to engaging with China.”
Currently, Chinese goods face US tariffs of 30 per cent under levies that Trump imposed while accusing Beijing of aiding in the fentanyl trade as well as unfair trade practices. As of now, China's retaliatory tariffs are at 10 per cent.
In the recent trade talks between the two superpowers, rare earths have been a major sticking point. They are critical to manufacturing everything from smartphones and electric vehicles to military hardware and renewable energy technology but produced and processed almost exclusively by China.
Trade tensions between the world’s two largest economies have deepened amid disputes over tariffs, technology transfer, and access to vital materials. The trade agreement, if finalises, is likely to resolve long-standing trade disputes, particularly those concerning rare-earth minerals and magnets, critical for the defense and electronics industries.
The recent announcement made by Trump marks the sharpest escalation in US-China trade tensions since the original tariff war began in 2018.
