Updated on March 4, 2025, at 1:08 p.m. he.
Bangkok – China imposes prices for reprisals on American products one day after President Donald Trump announced trade sweeping taxes with most countries – the last climbing of a trade war that could slow economic growth in the world.
The prices commission of the Chinese Council of State said that an additional 34% tariff on imports from the United States will be imposed from April 10 – corresponding to the new American tariff on China.
“This practice of the United States does not comply with the rules of international trade, seriously undermines the legitimate rights and interests of China, and is a typical practice of unilateral intimidation,” the commission said in a statement announcing its reprisals.
China, the second world economy after the United States, was already subject to a tariff of 20% that Washington had imposed earlier this year when Trump asked the country to buy more American goods and stop the flow of fatal synthetic fioing opioid.
The stock markets have crushed worldwide after the announcement of Trump’s price, indicating fears of a global recession. The US stock market dropped Friday later after China’s announcement.
When he announced the last rates at a White House event, Trump distinguished China as one of the “nations that treat us badly”. America’s trade deficit – the amount that imports exceed exports – China was 295.4 billion dollars last year, the largest in all countries.
The financial analyst of the Hong Kong veteran Joseph Ngan, believes that Chinese countermeasures will establish a precedent that other countries will follow.
“Given that China takes the lead in this series of reprisals, I believe that other countries-in particular those of the eastern block of the EU and Southeast Asia, which will also be strongly affected-will inevitably respond with their own countermeasures,” he told RFA Cantonese.
“The question of whether their rate rates correspond to that of China depends on the team which contains a greater lever effect,” he said.
Ngan said the world economy had benefited from free trade and globalization over the past 40 years and that Trump’s prices have brought a blow for this system.
The climbing of the price war A and will hurt all the parties, said Ngan. In the United States, it predicts stagflation – a combination of the increase in inflation and economic stagnation.
The tariff war will slow down the Chinese economy, said Sun Guoxiang, professor of commerce at the University of Southern China.
Prime Minister Li Qiang predicted that China’s economic growth this year will reach 5%, but the new tariff cycle will reduce GDP growth from 1 to 2.4 percentage points, said Sun.
Cambodian call
The nations of Southeast Asia were among the hardest affected by the new American prices, with almost 50% in some cases.
Some companies have moved production in the Southeast Asian countries such as Vietnam and Thailand from China after the first Trump administration, from 2016 to 2020, prices imposed prices on its world rival.
Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Manet wrote a letter dated Friday to request negotiations and hang on at the rate of 49% to be imposed from April 9.
Hun Manet said Cambodia would immediately reduce its 35% pricing rate to 5% American products in 19 product categories, including American whiskey and beef.
“Cambodia remains fully determined to engage in a constructive and productive dialogue with the American government to deepen our bilateral trade, so that nations and peoples can take advantage of the tangible advantages of these important trade relations,” said the letter.
In Vietnam, at the same time, the stock market plunged for a second day Friday after Trump announced a 46% tax on his exports, a large part of which are clothes and shoes.
On Friday, Trump posted on his truth the account of the social media he had spoken with the secretary general of Vietnam in Lam, and that Lam proposed to reduce the prices to zero if the two countries reach a consensus.
“I thank him on behalf of our country and I said that I look forward to a meeting in the near future,” wrote Trump.
Trump’s tariff shock therapy aims to encourage a rebirth of American manufacturing, which has fallen aside from the economy and employment over several decades of global free trade and production of production in countries at a lower cost.
Any change could take years because many American companies have made substantial investments in production abroad. In the United States, manufacturing, as elsewhere, also depends on the components produced in other countries.
Additional Cantonese, Mandarin, Vietnamese and Khmer RFA reports. Published by Tajun Kang and Malcolm Foster.
Updates with quotes from Chinese economic experts, Hun Manet’s letter to Trump, Trump’s phone call with the Vietnamese leader in Lam.