China hikes tariffs on US goods to 125%

Beijing announced on Friday, April 10, 2025, that it has increased its tariffs on US imports to 125 percent.

This comes after the White House on Thursday clarified that it was actually imposing tariffs totalling 145 percent on China.

It was combining the previously announced 125 percent rate with a 20 percent import tax levied for fentanyl smuggling.

Global stocks fell, the dollar slid and a sell-off in US government bonds picked up pace today as a result.

On Thursday, the EU put its counter-tariffs on hold after Trump announced a 90-day pause on his “reciprocal tariffs”.

The pause on his tariffs was on nearly 60 countries while keeping a baseline 10 percent tariff in place.

US-China trade war amounts to an economic ‘poker game’: Analyst

An analyst, Huiyao Wang, the founder of the Center for China and Globalization, predicts that tariffs will damage US-China trade relations.

He believes it will harm major US companies in the process.

According to him, the US-China trade war amounts to an economic ‘poker game’.

“Remember, there are 73,000 US companies that have invested in China in the last several decades,” Wang told Al Jazeera.

“Apple exports 80 to 90 percent of the Apple products out of China,” he added, offering examples.

“And Tesla, half of Tesla’s cars are exported out of China.”

Wang said the spiralling trade war felt increasingly like a “poker game”.

He advised the two countries to return to diplomacy, rather than continue with a high-stakes game of one-upmanship.

“I really think we should sit down and talk and discuss the issues,” Wang said.

He pointed out that negotiations have been a fruitful outlet for advancing US priorities like reducing fentanyl smuggling.

“I think China has already done a lot of things there,” he said.

He noted that a Biden administration official recently published an op-ed in The New York Times “saying that China’s government was very cooperative to fight fentanyl”.

“And of course the death rate of fentanyl in the US last year dropped to 27 percent.

So I think there’s things that can be done to talk and collaborate.”

An op-ed (short for “opposite the editorial page”) is a type of article typically published in a newspaper or magazine that expresses the personal opinion of the author.

It is often on a current issue or topic.

Unlike news articles, which aim to be objective and fact-based, an op-ed is meant to present the author’s perspective, backed by arguments, reasoning, and evidence.

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