Ana Swanson
President Trump on Friday said he would impose a 100 percent tariff on all products from China in response to curbs Beijing announced this week on rare-earth minerals, a rapid escalation of tensions between the world's largest economies.
On Truth Social, Mr. Trump wrote that the tariffs would take effect on Nov. 1 and be imposed “over and above” other tariffs on Chinese exports, which are already 30 percent and in some cases much higher. The United States would also put export controls on critical software, he said.
In an earlier post on Friday, the president threatened to retaliate and cancel a planned meeting with China’s leader, Xi Jinping.
Mr. Trump called the curbs that China put out this week on its exports of rare-earth minerals “sinister and hostile” and said they would “make life difficult for virtually every Country in the World.” He added that he had planned to meet Mr. Xi in two weeks at an international economic conference in South Korea, “but now there seems to be no reason to do so.”
“One of the Policies that we are calculating at this moment is a massive increase of Tariffs on Chinese products coming into the United States of America,” he wrote. “There are many other countermeasures that are, likewise, under serious consideration.”
Markets shuddered at the developments — the S&P 500 index sliding more than 2 percent on Friday.
Speaking Friday evening, the president suggested that the tariffs could be walked back before the Nov. 1 deadline and that he would not necessarily cancel his planned meeting with Mr. Xi.
“We’ll see what happens,” Mr. Trump said. He called China’s move “very, very bad.”
Rare-earth minerals, which are vital for making an array of products including motors, brakes, semiconductors and fighter jets, have been at the center of tensions between the United States and China this year. Mr. Trump has also placed extreme tariffs on Chinese exports before, only to walk them back after they restricted trade and hurt companies in both countries.
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