Name: EU puts counter-tariffs on hold for 90 days after US pauses its higher tariffs | BBC News
Uploaded: 2025-04-12T09:46:13.000Z
Duration: 8 min 38 s
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Well, in the last few minutes, the European Union says it's suspending planned tariffs on the U.S.

That's after President Trump said he'd pause additional American tariffs, which came into force yesterday.

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Well, following the president's change of heart, global stock markets are rallying, although the high levies imposed on China do still remain in place.

Well, let's take you live to Germany, where the DAX has seen increases.

There have also been gains in London and Paris, and share prices in Asia have also risen.

For most nations, a reprieve, although just for 90 days, and that 10% baseline tariff remains in place.

But China does remain subject to high tariffs from America.

President Trump has now upped the rate to 125%, accusing Beijing of showing a lack of respect by retaliating.

Well, a Chinese foreign ministry spokesman said China didn't want to fight, but didn't fear the U.S.

He said China wouldn't sit back and allow the rights of Chinese people to be deprived.

President Trump's change of heart came just hours after he urged people to be cool, as markets fell as those new tariffs took effect.

Then came that dramatic change of policy, where he said those higher tariffs were being paused because people were getting, as he called it, yippee.

Now, as we said, that 10% baseline tariff does remain in place for countries, as do the earlier levies on Canada and Mexico.

Well, as we've been reporting, China insists it won't back down in the face of President Trump's increasing tariffs on Chinese goods, which, as we said, now stand at 125%.

Let's have a listen to the foreign ministry spokesperson, Lin Jian.

Taking necessary countermeasures to oppose the U.S. bullying moves is not only aimed at protecting our own sovereignty, security and development interests, but also for safeguarding international fairness, justice, safeguarding the multilateral trading system, upholding the common interests of the international community.

The U.S. move doesn't win the support of the people and will end in failure.

Let me stress that tariff wars and trade wars have no winners.

China does not want to fight them, but will not fear when they come our way.

Well, our China correspondent Stephen McDonald has been monitoring developments for us from Beijing.

So the Chinese government has vowed to fight on in the face of another tariff increase from Donald Trump.

I'll give you a flavour of some of the comments we're getting today from the government here.

So from the Commerce Ministry, China is open to dialogue with the U.S., but only on the basis of mutual respect.

The Commerce Ministry here has also said that the U.S. should consider that its tariffs are severely impacting global economic stability.

And then we have the Foreign Ministry here today saying that China isn't wanting a fight, but if a fight is what is required, it doesn't fear the U.S.

Here, if you look at companies that are specifically targeting the U.S. market, now they're suffering.

We've seen posts also on social media here of bosses saying to their employees and certain companies, perhaps you might think of taking some unpaid leave now because we're going to ramp down our production, hoping that things will come good in the future and we can start trading in all with our full force if it can all be worked out.

But if you speak to ordinary Chinese people in the street here, they're not really panicking.

They're just saying, look, if U.S. products coming in here become more expensive, we'll just switch to Chinese products, whether it be electronic goods, cars, you name it.

And so for the Chinese government, it seems they're just going to try and ride this out.

I mean, I think most observers would think given this monumental back down from Donald Trump following the chaos created by his tariffs, there's a belief here that there will at some point be a deal between Beijing and Washington.

And, you know, in the meantime, I think they'll probably just hold firm, wait for an off-ramp to reveal itself and then take it when it does.

Stephen McDonald in McDonald in Beijing for us.

Well, for more on that, let's speak to Dr. Yu Jia, Senior Research Fellow on China at the Asia-Pacific Programme at Chatham House.

Stephen, they're saying that perhaps China will ride this out.

What's your assessment of what China's next steps might be?

Well, nice to talk to you in the programme.

Obviously, I think it's not about economic rationality in here right now.

It's mostly about public image that the Chinese government can't afford to look soft in front of Donald Trump, firstly.

I think secondly, that China also believes what Donald Trump has done in terms of disrupting the international trading system is not fair.

Hence, they will prepare to be fight down.

I think also overall that given the fact that China already had a first round of trade war with the United States back to eight years ago, they're somehow accustomed to this sense of pressure and they've seen this coming for quite a while.

So in a way, when Stephen was asking the Chinese normal people on the street on whether they want to switch to American products to the Chinese product, I think that's also partially because that China is a manufacturing hub and hence it can afford to looking for replacement and the domestic consumer can afford to looking for domestic replacement as well.

So that's a very different game compared with, for example, European Union and UK in here.

It's interesting because also this all boils down to what goods each nation trades with each other.

And I've just been seeing that China's saying it's planning to reduce the number of US films that it imports.

China's film administration saying that those tariffs on Beijing were likely to further diminish the domestic appetite for American films.

Well, again, I think the first reason is really the public opinion.

I think in the last eight years, the Chinese public opinion has really shifted fundamentally on its impression towards the United States.

Really it's from that sense of admiration into annoyance.

So to letting the Chinese public watching more Hollywood film and perhaps that'd be quite questionable.

And secondly, I think there's been quite a few domestic success regarding China's own films made at home.

So in a way, yes, perhaps without Hollywood film, but I mean the film market was in domestic China still goes on well.

So that's not exactly something that is quite fundamental for China's economy.

But if you actually look into the trade data, what China buys from the United States is mostly agricultural products.

And of course, Beijing has also diversified the source of supply on those agricultural products from Argentina, other Latin American countries and as well as Russia.

So again, somehow looking for alternative from the United States.

Yeah, it's interesting because actually analysts say that that could be a setback for the Hollywood studios because China's the world's second largest cinema audience.

So we see the numbers going up. 24 hours ago when I was in this chair, it was 84% that China said.

What are we going to get as a volley the other way, if anything?

Well, I mean, it's not a basketball game.

But on the other hand, I think for sure irrespective of 84 or 125%, it doesn't make much difference anymore.

I think essentially what I have seen now is an escalation of economic hard decoupling between the two countries, which is quite sad.

Thank you very much, Dr. Yu Jia, Senior Research Fellow on China and the Asia-Pacific Program at Chatham House.