China punches back as world weighs how to deal with higher U.S. tariffs

A worker loads rolls of steel plate at a steel market in Hangzhou in east China's Zhejiang province, Monday, March 31, 2025. (Chinatopix Via AP)

BANGKOK — China hit back with a stiff import tax on U.S. goods as countries and industries around the world weighed their responses to U.S. President Donald Trump’s latest tariff hikes that are roiling global trade and world markets.

China on Friday took the retaliation route by imposing a 34 per cent tariff beginning April 10 on the imports of all U.S. products, matching the added 34 per cent imposed on Wednesday by Trump on Chinese imports along with increased tariffs on other countries and major trading partners.

Trump was swift to criticize Beijing’s move. “China played it wrong, they panicked -- the one things they cannot afford to do,” he wrote in a social media post, adding: “My policies will never change. This is a great time to get rich.”

 pCountries were taking different approaches as they sought a way to deal with the potential disruption to trade and supply chains. Taiwan’s president promised to provide support to industries most vulnerable to the 32 tariffs Trump ordered in his “Liberation Day” reciprocal tariffs announcement.

Vietnam, where the US is a major trade partner, said its deputy prime minister would visit the U.S. for talks on trade.

Some, like the head of the EU’s European Commission, have vowed to fight back while promising to improve the rules book for free trade. Others like Britain said they were hoping to negotiate with the Trump administration for relief.

Fighting back

As with earlier countermoves to U.S. trade penalties, Beijing hit back with targeted action, as well as its universal 34 tariff on all products from the U.S.

The Commerce Ministry in Beijing said it will impose more export controls on rare earths, which are materials used in high-tech products such as computer chips and electric vehicle batteries. Included in the list was samarium and its compounds, which are used in aerospace manufacturing and the defense sector. Another element called gadolinium is used in MRI scans.

China’s customs administration said it had suspended imports of chicken from two U.S. suppliers, Mountaire Farms of Delaware and Coastal Processing. It said Chinese customs had repeatedly detected furazolidone, a drug banned in China, in shipments from those companies.

Additionally, the Chinese government said it has added 27 firms to lists of companies subject to trade sanctions or export controls.

For good measure, China also filed a lawsuit with the World Trade Organization, saying the U.S. tariffs were “a typical unilateral bullying practice that endangers the stability of the global economic and trade order.”

Seize the day

India was hit by a 26 per cent tariff rate, lower than the 34 per cent for Chinese exports and 46 for Vietnam. Its Commerce Ministry that it was “studying the opportunities that may arise due to this new development in U.S. trade policy.” It said talks were underway on a trade agreement, including “deepening supply chain integration.”

The U.S was New Delhi’s biggest trading partner in 2024 with two-way trade estimated at US$129 billion, according to U.S. data. They have set an ambitious target of more than doubling their bilateral trade to 500 billion by 2030. Most pharmaceuticals and other medicines, important Indian exports to the U.S., are exempt from the reciprocal tariffs.

However, diamonds and other gems, another major export industry, are subject to the higher duties.

Business groups said they viewed the challenge as a chance to improve India’s competitiveness. “At a time when global trade dynamics are shifting rapidly, Indian exporters must be equipped with the right policies, strategies, and support to compete effectively,” S.C. Ralkan, head of the Federation of Indian Export Organizations, said in a statement.

We need to talk

Most U.S. trading partners have emphasized they hope negotiations can help resolve trade friction with Washington. Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba said he was prepared to fly to Washington, in a last-ditch effort to forestall the 24 per cent tariffs Trump ordered for exports from the biggest Asian U.S. ally.

“The global trading system has serious deficiencies,” the president of the EU’s European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, said Thursday while on a visit to Uzbekistan. But she chided Trump, saying that “reaching for tariffs as your first and last tool will not fix it. This is why from the onset we have always been ready to negotiate with the United States.”

In Italy, Premier Giorgia Meloni told state TV she believes the 20 U.S. tariffs on exports from Europe were wrong, but “it is not the catastrophe that some are making it out to be.‘’ Her government planned to meet next week with representatives of affected sectors to formulate plans. “We need to open an honest discussion on the matter with the Americans, with the goal, at least from my point of view, of removing tariffs, not multiplying them,‘’ Meloni said.

Vietnam’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson, Pham Thu Hang, said Hanoi would keep talking with the U.S. to “find practical solutions” as 46 U.S. tariffs threatened to decimate exports of footwear, electronics, textiles and seafood.

“If enforced, would negatively impact bilateral economic and trade relations as well as the interests of businesses and people in both countries,” Hang said in comments cited by state-run media, which reported that the deputy prime minister and former finance minister Ho Duc Phoc was scheduled to visit the U.S. for trade talks next week.

A helping hand

Taiwan President Lai Ching-te said he will offer the “greatest support” to industries most impacted by the new tariffs. Taiwan’s trade surplus with the U.S. is relatively high partly because the island is a major source of computer chips and other advanced technology. Lai said in a statement on his Facebook page that “We feel that this is unreasonable and are also worried about the subsequent impact these measures may have on the global economy.”

Lai said he instructed Premier Cho Jung-tai to work closely with industries that are impacted and to communicate with the public about their plans to stabilize the economy.

Japan’s leader Ishiba and other governments also said they were preparing countermeasures to help industries cope.

Likewise, von der Leyen said the EU was consulting with steel and auto makers, pharmaceutical companies and other industries about how to give them more “breathing space.”

Looking elsewhere

Trump’s decision to sharply raise tariffs on countries spanning the globe is “self-defeating,” Wang Huiyao, president of the Chinese think tank Center for China and Globalization, said in an interview.

The latest tariffs impose heavy burdens on some countries in Latin America, the Middle East, Africa and Asia.

It’s a trade war with the world, Wang said, while China’s strategy is to trade more with Southeast Asia and Latin America, with Europe, the Middle East and other developing nations.

“The likely outcome is that China will become the largest trading nation and its economy will be trading more with other nations and the U.S. may ... become more isolated,” Wang said.

Europe will work to build more bridges and as a regional economic bloc of 450 million people, larger than the United States, it also has its own huge market, said von der Leyen, the EC president.

The EU is its own “safe harbor in tumultuous times,” she said.

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AP journalists from around the world contributed.

By Elaine Kurtenbach, The Associated Press