China Vows Retaliation After Trump Announces New Tariffs On Chinese Exports

I have great respect for President Xi (Jinping) of China, great respect for China, but they were taking tremendous advantage of us,

Trump said during his roughly hour-long address in the White House’s Rose Garden on Wednesday

Wendy Cutlerformer U.S. diplomat

The reciprocal tariff rates announced today will come as a shock to our trading partners and will cause harm to the U.S. economy with higher prices, slower economic growth, and slowed down business investment."

Wendy Cutler, vice president of the Asia Society Policy Institute, said

We have emphasized more than once that trade and tariff wars have no winners. Protectionism leads nowhere. We urge the U.S. to stop doing the wrong thing, and resolve trade differences with China and other countries through consultation with equality, respect and mutual benefit."

Guo Jiakun, spokesperson for the Chinese Foreign Ministry, said

Beijing won't be blindsided by today's news—but the pressure is piling up,

Singleton said

This is difficult to understand given Taiwan's open economy and extensive manufacturing [foreign direct investment] projects in the United States,

Cutler added

Wendy Cutlerformer U.S. diplomat

Our close partners appear to be treated similarly to our rivals, with China's reciprocal tariff rate just a tad higher than Taiwan's,

said Wendy Cutler, vice president of the Asia Society Policy Institute, in a statement to Newsweek

With no high-level diplomacy and both sides [the U.S. and China] entrenched, the real risk now is escalation by default—not design."

Craig Singleton, senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, told Newsweek

History has proven that raising tariffs will not solve the problems of the United States itself, and will not only harm the interests of the United States itself, but also endanger the global economic development and the stability of the production and supply chain."

A spokesperson for the Chinese Commerce Ministry said

If you reduce the export of critical minerals, you have to reduce the domestic production of those critical minerals, which means putting workers out of business,

Pettis said

President Trump walked into the Rose Garden and detonated the most aggressive trade shock the market's seen in decades

Stephen Innes of SPI Asset Management said

This won’t necessarily be limited to tariff increases. It could also include measures to make life more difficult for US companies that depend on the China market,

Olson said

I do think that in these circumstances, the best way for Beijing to react is to do some retaliation and boost the economy,

said Guo Shan, partner and research economist at Hutong Research, who also noted

Given how high tariffs already are, virtually every industry will be impacted, but those already struggling with negative profit growth recently will bear the brunt,

said EIU’s Su, who said

It will definitely slow the (parcel screening) process and exporters will probably see their packages being stopped at the border for investigation for a very long time,

said Guo

Rerouting Chinese exports may fail in countries like Vietnam, where exports were previously rerouted in part, and are (now) also being hit hard,

said Josef Gregory Mahoney, professor of politics and international relations at East China Normal University

These tariffs make a deal quite difficult because any exchange right now will be seen as a political compromise from Beijing’s side,

she said

Given the high level of tariffs aimed at the mainland and Taiwan, as well as other East Asian, Southeast Asian and South Asian economies, Beijing sees this as a broad strategic opening to improve ties and further integrate Asian economies,

he said

They need to be strong and precise, while also avoiding turning the countermeasures into a decoupling of China and the United States,

Mei added

This trade war not only has a destructive impact on China but also on the global trade system,

Chen Wenling, Chief Economist at the China Center for International Economic Exchanges in Beijing, said

US imports from China are dominated by capital goods and industrial materials instead of consumer goods,

Gene Ma, Head of China Research at the Institute of International Finance, told AFP