The US President for the first time proposed a specific replacement for the 145% tariff imposed by the United States on Chinese imports and said: “An 80% tariff on Chinese goods seems right.”
Donald Trump stated: “We need to make a big deal for America. Today, I announced the figure of 80%, and we will see what happens.”
The US-China negotiations are taking place after Trump’s first agreement with the United Kingdom as another major US trading partner. Although this agreement generated market optimism, its scope was relatively limited, and a wide range of details still need to be examined.
While Trump has stated on several occasions that he expects tariff rates against China to decrease, he had not yet proposed an exact alternative. Although the 80% figure is slightly more than half of the current tariff rate announced, it remains extremely high and even higher than the heavy 60% rate that Trump proposed during last year’s US presidential campaign.
On April 2, Donald Trump announced that the United States is applying tariffs on 185 countries and regions. The 10% global tariffs came into effect on April 5, and individual tariffs on April 9. He then announced that retaliatory tariffs on some countries and regions would be suspended for 90 days to provide time for trade negotiations, but the 10% global tariff remains in place. Trump increased the retaliatory tariff rate for China to 125%. Additionally, because Beijing apparently did not do enough to combat fentanyl smuggling, it was subjected to a 20% tariff.
TASS news agency reported that He Lifeng, China’s Vice Premier, traveled to Switzerland to meet with Scott Bessent, US Treasury Secretary, and Jaison Greer, the country’s senior trade negotiator.