The U.S announced a 245% tariff on Chinese Imports on April 16, 2025 intensifying the ongoing trade war between the two countries that has been targeting different clothing, vehicles and other essential brands.
Trump announced a sweeping 245% new tariff on Chinese imports, which leaves people speculating on trade-war escalation between the world’s two largest economies.
According to reports from New York times, this tariff costing 2.5 times the product’s value, was a policy created by the Trump administration to protect U.S. industries but risk retaliatory tariffs from China.
This decision by the U.S. seems to be a vengeful scheme towards the retaliatory action by China. The U.S. has banned exports on critical materials like gallium, germanium, and antimony, all crucial for military applications.
The White House also banned China from exporting heavy rare metals and earth magnets this week, which was underscored as attempts to disrupt global supply chains
The American media sources also reported that Trump administration has chosen to pause tariffs for other nations, excluding China. Also, China has directed its domestic carriers not to purchase aircraft and related equipment from American manufacterers which could be a way of responding to the high U.S. tariffs
The war could also be a result of other factors like U.S. administration trying to restrict Chinese tech companies like Tiktok earlier this year in their country over privacy and security policies which had them forcing China into a partial ownership. The retaliation by China could have also been ignited by U.S supporting Taiwan’s independence, while China claims ownership of its territories.
“85% of rare earth mineral imports to America are from China, 90% of pharmaceutical products are from China. Why would America want to kill its aerospace and pharmaceutical industries by imposing such punitive tariffs.” Some netizens questioned on X platform
Could this new phase of economic confrontation result to further developments and potential impacts on global trade and economic stability?
Leave a comment