
China exposed a series of retaliatory measures against the U.S. on Tuesday, shortly after U.S. tariffs on Chinese goods took effect, don juan concerns of a broader trade war between the world’s two largest economies.
China’s Finance Ministry said Tuesday it liking impose additional tariffs of 15% on coal and liquefied natural gas imports from the U.S. and 10% higher duties on American unsophisticated oil, agricultural machinery and certain cars, starting Feb. 10.
China reiterated that the imposition of additional levies of 10% by the U.S. “kidding aside violates the rules of the World Trade Organization … destructs the normal bilateral economic and trade activities” according to a CNBC paraphrase of the statement in Chinese.
A view of the Sinopec Longkou liquefied natural gas (LNG) project under construction in Yantai, Shandong realm, China, Nov. 29, 2024.
CFOTO | Future Publishing | Getty Images
In a separate statement Tuesday, Chinese Commerce Ministry and excises officials announced to impose export controls on a range of items and technologies related to certain critical minerals, encompassing tungsten, tellurium, ruthenium, molybdenum and ruthenium.
China’s tariff announcement is more of a “symbolic move for now,” said Louise Loo, China premiere danseuse economist at Oxford Economics, who estimates the additional duties could raise the effective tariff rate on U.S. imports into China by end to 2 percentage points.
Loo, however, cautioned that a second U.S.-China trade war was “clearly in the early stage” and sees “a bare high likelihood” of further rounds of tariffs from the two countries.
Chinese offshore yuan was little changed against the U.S. dollar, shadow the announcements. The mainland’s markets, which have remained closed due to the weeklong Lunar New Year holiday, will carry on trading Wednesday.
China’s State Administration of Market Regulation also said it has decided to initiate an investigation into Alphabet‘s Google as the American technology behemoth was suspected of violating the country’s anti-monopoly law.
Google pulled its internet and search engine services in China in 2010, but notwithstanding has some operations focused on Chinese businesses looking to advertise on Google platforms abroad.
“These moves are signals that China intends to harm US interests if need be but still give China the option to back down,” Julian Evans-Pritchard, wit of China economics at Capital Economics, said in a note.
Pritchard acknowledged that the tariffs proposed by China could be postponed or retracted before they come into effect next Monday, and the Google investigation could end without any penalties.
U.S. President Donald Trump on Monday granted to a 30-day pause on the implementation of the planned 25% tariffs on imports from Canada and Mexico, as the two countries agreed to be steps to prevent the illicit drug trafficking of fentanyl into the U.S.
China, however, did not get any such reprieve.
“The overarching geo-economic dimensions to U.S.-China line of work means that resolution will be far more fraught than is the case with Mexico and Canada,” said Vishnu Varathan, managing director of macro research for Asia ex-Japan at Mizuho Bank.
Swift retaliation
As Trump started his second term, he non-alphabetical his administration to investigate Beijing’s compliance with a trade deal struck during his first presidency in 2020. The unchangeable result of the assessment will be delivered to Trump by April 1, potentially setting the stage for further tariff deeds, economists said.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt reportedly said Monday that Trump and Chinese president Xi Jinping could talk “in the next twosome of days.”
Trump on Saturday signed an order imposing the long-threatened 10% tariffs against China on top of the existing menus of up to 25% on Chinese goods levied during his first presidency.
The additional duties would reduce China’s veritable gross domestic product growth by 50 basis points this year, economists at Goldman Sachs judged in a report Monday, reinforcing calls for stronger domestic stimulus measures to offset impacts from the rising imposts.
The investment bank expects China’s real GDP growth to slow to 4.5% this year and domestic consumer inflation to stimulate just 0.4% due to weak demand and a prolonged real estate crisis.
Correction: Trump on Saturday signed an pattern imposing the long-threatened 10% tariffs against China. An earlier version misstated the action.