Name: China imposes 84% tariffs on the US | BBC News
Uploaded: 2025-04-10T06:24:12.000Z
Duration: 8 min 2 s
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Well, we're just getting some breaking news here, actually.

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The finance ministry has just made an announcement that, remember there were 34 per cent tariffs on all US goods coming into China.

That's now been increased to 84 per cent, an 84 per cent hit on all US goods coming into China.

Obviously, that's a clear blow to every US company wanting to sell into this huge market.

It no doubt is going to send more shockwaves through, I would imagine, the markets, especially in the US, but like I say, especially hurting any American company wanting to sell into this market.

The other thing that was mentioned in that statement is that Beijing is taking the Trump administration to the WTO.

We sort of knew that before, though, the World Trade Organization, but there may be more measures to come.

That's just been flashed right now, as I say.

There's no backing down from the Chinese government.

They said there would be resolute countermeasures if Donald Trump made good on his promise to increase the US tariff on Chinese goods to a minimum of 104 per cent.

And so we're seeing that, we're seeing the beginnings of that.

Now what's Donald Trump going to do in the face of yet another increase from here?

I mean, the Chinese government, for example, has been saying over the last couple of days that from its point of view, the Trump administration has shown no inclination whatsoever to enter into negotiations today via its sort of proxies, I suppose, state media reporters on their social media platforms.

It's been kind of ridiculing the fact that other countries are going with the begging bowl to Washington and saying, oh, please, Donald Trump, can you take these tariffs off us?

They're saying this is playing right into Donald Trump's hands, that actually he wants to pick off countries one by one.

And the contrast that's being made here is that Beijing says it supports multilateral trade efforts whereby rules apply to everybody.

And you know, there would be some sympathy for that, especially in Southeast Asian countries, developing countries like Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam.

They've been hit very hard by tariffs from the US.

And funnily enough, in a meeting today, Xi Jinping said that China has to increase its trade with, guess where, its neighbouring countries, those very same countries.

So you can see that they're trying to make something good out of the trade chaos that's coming from this onslaught from the Trump administration.

Yeah, I mean, that news literally coming into you as we asked you that question, Stephen.

We're just going to keep you there for a second, but show you the DAX, the German index there, because you can see on the screen, as that news just came in, a steep drop there in the German markets.

And we're hearing on the Reuters news agency that US stock index futures have turned sharply lower after China announced those additional tariff measures on US goods.

So, of course, this is a fast moving story.

Stephen, just to remind our viewers really of the scale of this, how important is US China trade?

So much of what people use in both countries comes from the other.

And you can imagine why such an announcement would, you know, end up in causing such huge drop offs in stocks, even in other countries, because you've got the global superpowers at each other's throats, enormous volumes of trade from one country to another.

And remember, they're both building things with components that come from each other's countries.

And so if you're putting a tariff on one country, you're also hurting your own manufacturing.

So, you know, all these American companies, Donald Trump says, no worries, people are going to buy American.

Well, those cars and what have you, they're still using widgets that are possibly coming out of China.

They've got to pay more for that now, the car producers.

And so this is why, you know, the ripples are being felt all over the world.

And it's why, you know, the shock of yet another announcement from China responding yet again to more tariffs from Donald Trump would be causing so much angst, especially when it comes to, you know, analysts, economists, they're saying this is all disastrous for the global economy.

Yes, Stephen, we're still getting more information from China's commerce ministry.

And I appreciate you've been talking to me.

So you've been unable to see this, but I'm just going to read out what we've got in front of us.

It says that the commerce ministry has added six US entities to the unreliable entity list and also says the commerce ministry has added 12 US entities to the export control list.

Of course, I appreciate I'm just throwing this at you now, but if there's anything you can read into that.

Well, this is what happened last time, you know, this is the combination of last time that 34 percent was whacked on all US goods.

There was also an extra bunch of companies added to this unreliable trading list.

Now, normally that's someone who is either doing some sort of trade that involves Taiwan or Hong Kong or something that's upset Beijing.

And so they're using that as an excuse to whack these companies onto those lists.

And basically that blocks you from trading here.

And, you know, it could see the people involved in that being sanctioned by Beijing if they try to do some sort of trading with China.

But, you know, what China has done, though, because it hasn't, you know, there's more Chinese trade going into the US than the other way.

It can't exactly match the overall hit on tariffs.

So it'll cherry pick things that it decides might really hurt the US, especially hurt into Donald Trump's heartland.

That's why they struck last time at the agricultural sector.

We could see more moves that they've flagged in social media this week via state media reporters, that that could be something else the Chinese government might consider.

Yet more moves to block agricultural products.

So far, unless I'm not saying that, but it doesn't seem to have come out so far as part of these latest moves announced tonight.

But that could be something we see down the road.

If Donald Trump ups the ante again, applies even more tariffs on top of the minimum 104 percent on all Chinese goods.

Well, they've they've still got other weapons they can use.

And I should add the difference with China and other countries is this is a big, you know, resolute economy with a huge domestic market.

And so the government has been saying we can ride this out.

Certainly that's so much more true than other countries.

You know, I mentioned these Southeast Asian countries that are going to be very badly hit by these tariffs.

It makes it so much harder for Washington to be bullying Beijing because of the power of this economy.

And, you know, you can imagine other countries looking at Beijing, taking a stance against the Trump administration, and actually they'd be calculating they might be getting some sort of political support from certain areas, you know, by virtue of the fact that they're standing up to the U.S. on this.

And that might even lead to greater trade with other countries and which making up for the loss for Chinese companies that not selling in the same volumes into the U.S.