President Trump announced Friday he will raise tariffs on China in response to a move from Beijing to tighten its control over certain critical minerals and rare earth elements.
Trump announced on Truth Social that he would impose a tariff of 100 percent on Chinese goods beginning Nov. 1 or sooner. Those tariffs will supersede existing duties already in place on Chinese goods.
The president said his administration would also place export controls “on any and all critical software.”
“It is impossible to believe that China would have taken such an action, but they have, and the rest is History,” Trump posted.
China announced this week that foreign entities must obtain a license in order to export any products containing more than 0.1 percent of rare earths that are either sourced in China or manufactured using the country’s extraction process. China controls roughly 70 percent of the world’s rare metals and earths.
Rare earths and critical minerals are used in numerous products, including cars, semiconductors and electronics like laptops.
Trump in his Truth Social post called China’s move “absolutely unheard of in International Trade, and a moral disgrace in dealing with other Nations.”
Trump earlier Friday had threatened countermeasures in response to the announcement from Beijing, and he suggested he may no longer meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping during an upcoming summit in South Korea as previously planned.
The president’s announcement of heightened tariffs came shortly after the stock market closed Friday. But stocks had already seen sharp losses on the day after Trump’s initial threat to impose new tariffs.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 876 points on the day, closing with a loss of 1.9 percent. The S&P 500 fell 2.7 percent, and the tech-heavy Nasdaq composite plunged 3.6 percent before the closing bell.
The president has spoken warmly of Xi throughout his second term, even as the Trump administration has hit Beijing with tariffs over the flow of fentanyl into the U.S. and left other tariffs from Trump’s first term in place.
The tariffs on China have hit U.S. farmers particularly hard, as China has not purchased soybeans from American producers.
Updated at 5:12 p.m. EDT
Source: The Hill
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