China-led anti-US tariff pact bruited as Trump 50% deadline looms

Tensions between Beijing and Washington have escalated after US President Donald Trump’s threat to impose an additional 50% tariff on Chinese goods on April 9 if China does not meet his deadline and withdraw its announced 34% on American products by April 8.

“If China does not withdraw its 34% increase above their already long-term trading abuses by tomorrow, April 8, 2025, the United States will impose additional tariffs on China of 50%, effective April 9,” Trump said in a post on his Truth Social account on Monday. “Additionally, all talks with China concerning their requested meetings with us will be terminated!”

In another post, Trump said China is the biggest tariffs-abusing country. He criticized China for raising its tariffs by 34% for American goods, on top of its “long-term ridiculously high tariffs,” and for not acknowledging his warning to abusing countries not to retaliate.

On April 2, Trump said the US would impose a 34% tariff on Chinese goods, as China had imposed a 67% tariff on American goods over the past years. (His math is controversial, to say the least.) In addition to the 20% tariff unveiled in February and March, Trump has raised the US tariffs on Chinese goods by 54% since his inauguration on January 20.

On April 4 evening, China announced 11 retaliatory measures, including a 34% tariff on all American goods, sanctions on 11 US firms and rare earth export controls to the US.

On Monday, China’s Ministry of Commerce held a round-table meeting with representatives of more than 20 US firms, including Tesla, urging them to “make rational voices and take pragmatic actions to jointly maintain the stability of global production and supply chains and promote win-win cooperation.”

Beijing also called on countries hit by Trump’s reciprocal tariffs to unite and fight against the unilateralism of the US.

“The United States’ indiscriminate imposition of tariffs is tantamount to depriving all countries, especially countries in the Global South, of their right to development,” Lin Jian, a spokesperson of the Chinese Foreign Ministry, said in a media briefing on Monday.

“World Trade Organization data analysis shows that under unequal economic development and economic strength, the US tariff hike will widen the gap between rich and poor countries, and less developed countries will suffer a more significant impact,” he said. “This is a typical act of unilateralism, protectionism and economic bullying.”

“Countries should uphold the principle of extensive consultation, joint contribution and shared benefits, adhere to genuine multilateralism, jointly oppose all forms of unilateralism and protectionism, safeguard the international system with the United Nations as its core and safeguard the multilateral trading system with the WTO as its core.”

Lin’s comments came as the Hang Seng Index, Hong Kong’s stock market benchmark, fell 3,021 points, or 13.2%, to close at 19,828 on Monday. It was the biggest single-day decline in Hong Kong since 1997.

China’s Shanghai Composite index decreased 245 points or 7.34% to 3,096 on Monday, while the Taiex, the weighted index on the Taiwan Stock Exchange, plunged 2,065 points or 9.8% to 19,232.

The Dow Jones Index dropped 4,010 points, or 9.4%, to 38,274 within two days after Trump’s “reciprocal tariffs” announcement on April 2.

When asked by a journalist to comment on American consumers’ “pain threshold” and the US stock market decline, Trump said Sunday, “I don’t want anything to go down, but sometimes you have to take medicine to fix something.”

He added that European and Asian countries were “dying to make a deal” with the US.

Since April 2, countries including Vietnam and Israel have vowed to cancel all tariffs imposed on American goods. On Monday, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said that the EU offered the US a “zero-for-zero” deal to remove tariffs on all industrial goods as part of the trade negotiations. 

‘Forming an alliance’

Chinese commentators also called on “victims of Trump’s tariffs” to unite and unveil robust countermeasures jointly.

“It’s true that some countries are seeking to compromise with the US by offering zero-for-zero tariffs. But this is a very unwise move,” Pan Helin, a Chinese economist, says in an article. “Zero-for-zero tariffs won’t help reduce the United States’ trade deficit. The US only wants the targeted countries’ companies to move to America.”

Pan says China must form and lead an anti-US alliance to expand China’s influence in the global supply chain; if the US still wants to confront China, the alliance will kick the US out of the global trade system.

Xiao Zhifu, a researcher at Kunlunce Institute, a Chinese think tank, says in an article that Trump’s tariffs seem unorganized but are actually precise attacks on China.

“In 2024, the US saw its trade deficit significantly increase by 14% to US$1.21 trillion. China ranked first in trade surplus to the US, followed by the EU and Mexico,” he says. “Trump wants to make US$600 billion from the new tariffs, a quarter of which will come from China.”

He says that while it’s unlikely Washington will ease tariffs for China, Beijing must form an alliance with as many countries as possible to fight the US.

Zhou Xiaoming, a columnist for Guancha.cn, says China can ally with the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation members and BRICS countries against Trump’s tariffs. He says it’s important for China to boost trade ties with Russia, Brazil, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Saudi Arabia. 

‘Map cannon’ vs ‘bathing bases’

During the first US-China trade war he initiated in 2018, Trump had already imposed an average 20% tariff on all Chinese goods. This move prompted many Chinese manufacturers to relocate their production facilities to Southeast Asian countries and Mexico or tranship their products via third countries to the US.

“A growing portion of suppliers in overseas markets are owned by Chinese entities, who also seek to evade trade restrictions by setting up facilities overseas, particularly in other parts of Asia and Mexico,” The US-China Economic and Security Review Commission (USCC), an independent agency of the US government, said in a report to the Congress in November 2023. “US exposure to China also rose through transshipment of goods through third countries.”

Chinese media and commentators said Chinese companies have successfully minimized the negative impact of the 2018 US trade war on them by setting up “bathing bases” overseas to assemble their semi-finished products or sticking “Made in Vietnam” labels on them and re-exporting them to the US.
 
To address this, Trump launched the “reciprocal tariffs,” nicknamed “Map cannon” (regional attacks) by the Hong Kong media, on 180 countries, including some uninhabited volcanic islands near Antarctica. 
 
The phrase “Map cannon” is video game jargon for a situation in which a player attacks an enemy with an indiscriminate strike within a large area on a map. It is also an internet slang term used to slam a netizen’s irresponsible comments that stereotype a community.

Hong Kong newspapers used this phrase as Trump’s latest tariffs hit Washington’s military allies, such as the EU (20%) and the United Kingdom (10%); technology partners, such as Japan (24%), South Korea (25%), and Taiwan (32%); and manufacturing goods suppliers, such as Cambodia (49%), Vietnam (46%), Thailand (36%), India (26%), Sri Lanka (44%) and Pakistan (29%).

Read: China says it’s ready and able to fight Trump’s trade war