- The U.S. has imposed a 125% tariff on Chinese goods in response to their recent tariff increases in retaliation.
- Meanwhile, President Trump has announced a 90-day pause on tariffs for non-retaliating countries.
- White House Press Secretary mentioned current tariffs will be brought down to 10% on major goods importers like Vietnam.
We are in the midst of a trade Cold War between the US and China, as both countries are countering one another with drastically increasing import tariffs. Just yesterday, Trump imposed a 104% tariff on all goods exported to China. Now it’s been increased to 125% as a response to China’s retaliatory response.
The President-elect, in his recent Truth Social post, shared, “Based on the lack of respect that China has shown to the World’s Markets, I am hereby raising the Tariff charged to China by the United States of America to 125%, effective immediately”.
He further mentioned, “I have authorized a 90-day PAUSE, and a substantially lowered Reciprocal Tariff during this period, of 10%, also effective immediately. Thank you for your attention to this matter”. Thus, putting a pause for countries that haven’t retaliated against Trump’s recent tariffs imposed upon them by the U.S.
After this announcement, S&P saw a hike of 9.5% as reported by the New York Times. In the same post, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt discussed that the current tariffs will be brought down to 10 percent universally, except for China. Especially those that produce a large amount of goods for the U.S., like Vietnam.
However, this still doesn’t sound like good news for the consumer electronics sector. That’s because, most of them are imports from China. These new increased tariffs are more than double the import cost, skyrocketing the price of many devices. Some of its effects are already being seen. Nintendo has delayed its Switch 2 pre-orders and Razer and Framework are pausing shipments. We could see drastic effects soon if the two nations don’t come to a diplomatic settlement.
