President Trump published a new ultimatum in China on Monday: lifting his retaliation tariffs or a tax of 104 percent to his exports to the United States from this week.
The president's threat risked another important escalation in a costly and harmful global trade war, which has beaten up the financial markets as countries around the world to calibrate a reaction to Washington.
After Mr. Trump announced last week that he would impose a new tariff of 34 percent, Beijing replied and threatened to tax 34 percent.
In response to this, Trump said on Monday in a post about the social truth that the United States would “impose additional tariffs on China of 50%valid on April 9th”. Officials from the White House later made it clear that the tariff would be additive and possibly the total taxes that Mr. Trump has imposed on Chinese imports have been imposed on 104 percent since his office.
In addition to the tariffs, which Mr. Trump used in his first term, these taxes would come together with customs duties that apply to individual products due to specific violations.
The escalation could lead to a huge surcharge for importers who bring clothing, cell phones, chemicals and machines from China that may double the costs of their imports. American consumers bought $ 440 billion from China last year, the second largest source of US imports to Mexico.
The president also threatened that the talks with China are “terminated!” If Beijing had not returned from his promise to retaliate.
During this threat, Mr. Trump seemed to give the nations a strong warning around the world that he would punish additional tariffs if US trade partners tried to trace his guidelines. His comments made special urgency in one day when officials from the European Union wanted to circulate a list of US products that they could soon be subject to tariffs.
Mr. Trump expressly referred to his earlier threat that “every country that is considering the United States” would “immediately be hit with new and much higher tariffs about the tariffs initially defined”. But he also said that negotiations with “other countries” would start immediately.
Jeanna Smialek has contributed to the reporting.