The president of the United States, Donald Trump, after promises in the election campaign to impose tariffs on a number of countries, started to actually implement said policies. The main target of the sanctions is China, on which the Trump administration, at first, imposed 54% tariffs and later – 145%.
The rise in American tariffs followed retaliatory tariffs from China – the country responded to US tariffs with 34% on April 10th. After a rise in the US tariffs, China increased the rate to 84% and on Saturday, April 12th – to 125%. According to the Chinese Commerce Ministry, China will “fight to the end” if the US “insists on provoking a tariff war or trade war”.
Notably, on April 12th, Donald Trump talked about the tariff exemptions on smartphones, computers, and other electronic devices, which would provide a break for companies like Apple, since such firms are importantly reliant on imported products. On the same day, the Chinese side responded to said step taken by the US president – per the Chinese Commerce Ministry, this decision is „a small step by the US towards rectifying the misguided approach of unilateral ‘reciprocal tariffs’.“ Apart from this, the Ministry stated that Washington is severely harming the international economic and trade order and called on the country to „completely abandon the erroneous ‘reciprocal tariffs’, and return to the right path of mutual respect and resolving differences through equal dialogue”. Despite this, later, on April 13th, Donald Trump corrected his statement on exemptions and said, that nothing would be free from tariffs, and the electronic devices would simply be in a different „bucket“ of tariffs, therefore, 20% tariffs are still imposed on them. However, according to Trump’s statement, the terms will be „flexible“ for certain companies.
It is also important, that in line with such US policies, China is attempting to get close to the EU – the Chinese president, Xi Jinping, on April 11th, during a meeting with the Spanish prime minister, stated that Beijing and the EU should go against the „intimidation“ by the US with a united force and fulfill their „international responsibility“, which is connected to economic globalization and creating a fair international trade environment.
