Virendra Pandit
New Delhi: A day after the Nobel Committee rejected his claims for the Peace Prize 2025, US President Donald Trump went to a tariff war against China.
On Friday, he placed an additional 100 percent tax on Chinese imports starting on November 1 or sooner, potentially escalating tariff rates close to levels that in April this year fanned fears of a steep recession and financial market chaos.
He said he is imposing these new tariffs because of China’s export controls on rare earths, the media reported on Saturday.
On his private social media outlet, Truth Social, he said that “starting November 1st, 2025 (or sooner, depending on any further actions or changes taken by China), the United States of America will impose a Tariff of 100% on China, over and above any Tariff that they are currently paying.”
“There seems to be no reason” to meet with Chinese leader Xi Jinping as part of an upcoming trip to South Korea, he said, and threatened additional tariffs after China restricted exports of rare earths needed for American industry.
He suggested that he was looking at a “massive increase” of import taxes on Chinese products in response to Xi’s moves. Likely, this could either be posturing by the US for eventual negotiations or a retaliatory step that could foster new fears about the stability of the global economy.
“One of the Policies that we are calculating at this moment is a massive increase of Tariffs on Chinese products coming into the United States of America,” Trump posted. “There are many other countermeasures that are, likewise, under serious consideration.”
The US and China have been jostling for advantage in trade talks, after the import taxes announced earlier this year triggered a trade war between the world’s two largest economies. Both nations agreed to ratchet down tariffs after negotiations in Switzerland and the United Kingdom. Yet tensions remain as China has continued to restrict America’s access to the difficult-to-mine rare earths needed for a wide array of US technologies.
Trump did not, however, formally cancel the meeting with Xi, so much as indicating that it might not happen as part of a trip at the end of the month in Asia. The trip was scheduled to include a stop in Malaysia, which is hosting the Association of South-East Asian Nations (ASEAN) Summit; a stop in Japan; and a visit to South Korea, where he was slated to meet with Xi ahead of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Summit.
“I was to meet President Xi in two weeks, at APEC, in South Korea, but now there seems to be no reason to do so,” Trump posted.
His threat shattered a months-long calm on Wall Street, and the S&P 500 tumbled 2.7 percent on worries about the rising tensions between the world’s two largest economies. It was the market’s worst day since April.
On Thursday, Beijing restricted access to the rare earths ahead of the scheduled Trump-Xi meeting. China would require foreign companies to get special approval for shipping the metallic elements abroad. It also announced permitting requirements on exports of technologies used in the mining, smelting and recycling of rare earths, adding that any export requests for products used in military goods would be rejected.
The US President said that China is “becoming very hostile” and that it’s holding the world “captive” by restricting access to the metals and magnets used in electronics, computer chips, lasers, jet engines and other technologies, the reports said.
“I have not spoken to President Xi because there was no reason to do so,” Trump posted. “This was a real surprise, not only to me, but to all the Leaders of the Free World.”
He said the Chinese move on rare earths was “especially inappropriate” given the announcement of a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas in Gaza so that the remaining hostages from Hamas’ October 7, 2023, attack can be released. He raised the possibility–without evidence–that China was trying to steal the moment from him for his role in the ceasefire, saying on social media, “I wonder if that timing was coincidental?”
Early this year, the outbreak of a tariff-fuelled trade war between the US and China initially caused the world economy to shudder over the possibility of global commerce collapsing. Trump imposed tariffs totalling 145 percent on Chinese goods, with China responding with import taxes of 125 percent on American products.
The taxes were so high as to effectively be a blockade on trade between the countries. That led to negotiations that reduced the tariff charged by the US government to 30 percent and the rate imposed by China to 10 percent so that further talks could take place.
But differences continued over America’s access to rare earths from China, US restrictions on China’s ability to import advanced computer chips, sales of American-grown soybeans and a series of tit-for-tat port fees being levied by both countries starting on Tuesday.
It’s still unclear how Trump intends to follow through on his threats and how China plans to respond.