Trump suggests 245 percent tariffs on Chinese imports – Beijing calls it "blackmail"

Mercury Trump suggests 245 percent tariffs on Chinese imports – Beijing calls it "blackmail" Amy Walker • 3 hours • 3 minutes read WTO can no longer make forecasts The White House has published a new document that suggests tariffs of 245 percent on goods from China. This is causing confusion – including among the Chinese. Washington/Beijing – The trade war between China and the US shows no signs of ending and threatens to plunge the world into recession. The fronts appear to be increasingly entrenched, with China refusing to pick up the phone, just like the President of the United States. "China needs to make a deal with us," said US President Donald Trump's spokeswoman, Karoline Leavitt. "We don't need to make a deal with them." This is causing nervousness around the world – which is further exacerbated by Donald Trump's erratic policies. It gets even worse when the White House then shares confusing information without putting it into context. Trump brings tariffs of 245 percent into play: China is no longer keeping up This happened again on Tuesday evening (April 15). The White House published a fact sheet explaining the current status of tariffs on goods from China. "China now faces a tariff of up to 245 percent on imports into the United States due to its retaliatory measures," it states. This is causing international confusion, as previously only 145 percent tariffs had been mentioned. The Chinese Foreign Ministry was also asked by journalists about the new figure on Wednesday. Foreign Minister Lin Jian simply said: "You have to ask the US side how high it is now." He accused the administration in Washington of "exerting extreme pressure." For a negotiated solution, "the threats and blackmail must stop," Lin continued. China wants to be treated "on the basis of equality, respect, and mutual benefit." Trump further increases tariffs: 245 percent for some goods In fact, the 245 percent tariffs are nothing new. The New York Times published an article over the weekend titled "How High Are Tariffs on Goods from China? It's More Complicated Than You Think." In it, the journalists explain that Trump's new tariffs must be added to existing ones – some of which date back to the Joe Biden era. Biden had already imposed tariffs on certain goods such as needles, lithium-ion batteries, semiconductors, and electric cars. These vary between 7.5 and 100 percent. Trump then imposed tariffs of 25 percent on aluminum and steel, and another 25 percent on all car imports. Then came the 145 percent on all Chinese goods, consisting of 125 percent "counter-tariffs" and 20 percent as a "punitive tariff" for the production of the opioid fentanyl. For a car from China, this means a total tariff of 148 percent, according to the New York Times. For needles, however, the aforementioned 245 percent applies, since Biden had already imposed 100 percent on these products. The spontaneous exemptions introduced by Trump for some goods, such as smartphones and semiconductors, also create a patchwork. While smartphones were exempt from the 125 percent rate, they were not spared the 20 percent punitive tariff for fentanyl. As of today, a tariff of 20 percent applies to smartphones in the USA. Trump is causing chaos with his tariffs: WTO cannot make a clear forecast So it is: chaos. Essentially, each product must be calculated individually – and this becomes much more complicated when a product consists of multiple components, ideally from multiple components from different countries, all of which are subject to different tariffs. The new forecast from the World Trade Organization (WTO) is therefore hardly surprising: WTO experts expect the volume of global trade to decline by at least 0.2 percent in 2025 – in the worst case, by as much as 1.5 percent. Without the recent developments in the tariff dispute, this would have been around three percentage points more, thus allowing for growth. The WTO forecast already takes into account the suspension of special tariffs for many countries announced by Trump. However, if these so-called reciprocal tariffs are implemented, global trade is likely to suffer even more in 2025, according to the WTO: It would then decline by a further 0.6 percentage points. And if trade uncertainty continues to rise around the globe, a contraction of global trade by as much as 1.5 percent is conceivable. In its forecast, the WTO pointed out that assessing the impact of the tariff conflict is largely uncharted territory.