Breaking news! Trump threatens China: add another 50% tariff!
Recently, the global tariff war has intensified. On Monday, April 7, local time, the European Union held an emergency meeting and planned to take retaliatory measures against the US steel and aluminum tariffs, intending to lock in US products worth $28 billion. At the same time, US President Trump posted on the social platform Truth Social yesterday (Monday), setting off a new round of tariff storms. He severely criticized China's retaliatory tariffs of 34% on US goods and threatened that if China failed to withdraw this measure by April 8 (the next day), the United States would impose an additional 50% tariff on Chinese goods from April 9. In addition, Trump also stated that he would completely interrupt communication with China on relevant talks.
In an interview with the Daily Mail, House Speaker Mike Johnson revealed that President Trump is currently negotiating with up to 60 countries on tariffs. He said: "This strategy has only been implemented for about a week." In fact, Trump obviously has no intention of stopping. Although the market has reacted violently to the tariff issue, he still publicly increased the tariff threat several times yesterday and insisted that he would not make concessions on key trade issues. After the United States announced a new round of tariffs, its main trade opponents quickly took countermeasures and announced a 34% retaliatory tariff on all American products. In response, Trump issued a statement on the Truth Social platform on Monday, saying that if the other party fails to withdraw its decision to impose tariffs by April 8, the United States will further increase the tariff rate to 50% from April 9. He wrote in the statement: "If the other party does not withdraw its 34% tariff increase based on long-term unfair trade practices by April 8, the United States will impose an additional 50% tariff on related products from April 9."
In addition, Trump also made it clear that if the other party does not make concessions, all requests for talks originally proposed by the other party will be terminated. The relevant agencies of the country announced last Friday that they would implement reciprocal tariff measures against the United States, and strongly criticized Trump's approach, calling it "typical unilateral bullying" and believing that this approach is not in line with international trade rules.Although there were previous media reports that Trump was considering suspending the implementation of the 90-day reciprocal tariff policy, this news was quickly denied by the White House.In the relevant meeting, Trump made it clear that he was not considering suspending any tariff measures announced on "Liberation Day". He emphasized to reporters: "For a long time, the United States has been taken advantage of and exploited by many countries. This situation cannot continue. We can no longer be the 'stupid America' that allows others to bully us."
On Monday morning, the White House also refuted the claim of suspending tariffs for 90 days through official channels. The White House's @RapidResponse47 X account posted a message saying: "Wrong. Fake news", and pointed out that the so-called "the president will announce a three-month suspension" in the title is pure fiction. White House Communications Director Steven Cheung also expressed his opinion: "This is not true. No one can produce a transcript of this interview... because the president never said it at all." According to CCTV News, US President Trump said on the 7th that he would not suspend the so-called "reciprocal tariff" policy. After meeting with visiting Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu at the White House that day, Trump told the media that he had no consideration of suspending the tariff policy at the moment, and leaders of many economies were seeking to negotiate with him. He believes that there is no contradiction between forcibly implementing tariff policies and conducting negotiations. It is understood that earlier on the 7th, several US media reported that Kevin Hassett, director of the White House National Economic Council, said that US President Trump is considering suspending tariffs on some countries for 90 days. But according to verification, Hassett's original words in an interview with Fox News that day were "the president will make the decision he wants to make", and he did not specify that "Trump is considering suspending tariffs on some countries for 90 days". White House press secretary Carolyn Levitt later called it "fake news".
Trump also said on the 7th that he rejected the EU's proposal to exempt tariffs with the United States earlier that day, "No, this is not enough at all", "They are cheating us on trade issues". Netanyahu told the media after the talks that Israel will eliminate its trade deficit with the United States as soon as possible. According to US government data, the bilateral trade volume between the United States and Israel in 2024 is about 37 billion US dollars, and Israel's trade surplus with the United States is 7.4 billion US dollars. US government officials said on the 7th that more than 50 economies are currently in contact with the United States on tariff policies. But according to the US current affairs news website AXIOS, citing people familiar with the situation, these so-called contacts lack a real negotiation framework or two-way collaboration, which is frustrating. On April 2, Trump signed an executive order on the so-called "reciprocal tariffs" at the White House, announcing that the United States would impose a 10% "minimum base tariff" on its trading partners and impose higher tariffs on some trading partners.
