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    China Condemns American ‘Protectionism’

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    The Chinese government on Wednesday issued a lengthy denunciation of American trade policies, accusing the United States of years of protectionism and of violating the trade agreement the two sides had negotiated late in President Trump’s first term.The document was issued by Beijing’s cabinet information office several hours after Mr. Trump raised to 104 percent the extra tariffs on Chinese goods that he has imposed in his second term.The missive assailed the United States for preparing to impose additional 90 percent tariffs on May 2 on low-value parcels from China, which enter the United States with no customs inspection and no duties paid. The value of these so-called de minimis shipments has soared more than tenfold in recent years, exceeding $60 billion last year.There were a few unexpected conciliatory notes in the Chinese statement. “As two major countries at different stages of development with distinct economic systems, it is natural for China and the U.S. to have differences and frictions in their economic and trade cooperation,” it said.The report, issued by the State Council Information Office, criticized the United States for having considerably tightened export controls on the transfer to China of technologies with both civilian and military applications. The office suggested that this was a violation of the spirit of the so-called Phase One agreement reached in 2020. It said that China had abided by the pact, which also called for China to increase its purchases of American energy, agricultural products and manufactured goods, such as aircraft from Boeing, the American aerospace giant.“The Chinese side upheld the spirit of contract and endeavored to overcome multiple adverse factors, including the unexpected impact of the pandemic, subsequent supply chain disruptions, and global economic recession, to ensure implementation of the agreement,” the report said.China cited production delays by Boeing during the pandemic as reasons for not fulfilling that part of the pact. While Boeing has had delays, Chinese government-controlled airlines have refused to accept delivery of dozens of previously ordered planes for six years. At the same time, a heavily subsidized state-owned manufacturer, the Shanghai-based Commercial Aircraft Corporation of China, is racing to make its own single-aisle passenger planes.The commentary praised de minimis shipments as giving greater choice to consumers and helping small businesses to compete. Large Chinese e-commerce sites like Shein and Temu have expanded their shipments from factories in China straight to American households.The document noted that China allows de minimis shipments of parcels through delivery services. But in practice, China allows a far narrower exemption from tariffs than the $800 under the U.S. de minimis rules, limiting the value of many exempted parcels to $27.The document also did not mention that Congress raised the American de minimis limit to $800 in 2016, from $200 previously, kicking off a huge surge in such shipments across the Pacific from China and fueling a boom for Chinese e-commerce companies. More

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    Trump Maintains 104% China Tariffs as U.S. Officials Signal Openness to Talks

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    President Trump’s next round of punishing tariffs on some of America’s largest trading partners was set to go into effect just after midnight on Wednesday, including stiff new levies that will increase import taxes on Chinese goods by at least 104 percent.Mr. Trump acknowledged on Tuesday that his tariffs had been “somewhat explosive.” But throughout the day he continued to defend his approach, saying that it was encouraging countries with what he calls “unfair” trade practices to offer concessions.“We have a lot of countries coming in to make deals,” he said during remarks at the White House on Tuesday afternoon. At a dinner with Congressional Republicans in Washington later that evening, he said other countries wanted to make a deal with the United States but he was happy just collecting the revenue from tariffs, which he claimed would reach $2 billion a day.“I know what the hell I’m doing,” he said, adding that he would be announcing “a major tariff on pharmaceuticals” very shortly.The president and top administration officials signaled on Tuesday that the White House was ready to negotiate deals, saying that 70 governments had approached the United States to try to roll the levies back. Mr. Trump said officials would begin talks with Japan, South Korea and other nations.The president, whose punitive and successive tariffs on China have triggered a potentially economically damaging trade war, also said he was open to talking to Beijing about a deal.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Trump Says No Pause to Tariffs as He Targets China for Retaliation

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    President Trump said on Monday that he does not plan to pause a slate of expansive tariffs set to take effect later this week, as he threatened to subject Chinese imports to a staggering 104 percent tax in a bid to ward off retaliation by Beijing and other powers.Mr. Trump issued his warning on a day when the White House once again found itself on the defensive for its spiraling global trade war. But the president insisted he remained unbowed by the widening range of governments pleading for relief and the markets convulsing anew over the chaos and confusion.“We’re not looking at that,” Mr. Trump said, when asked about a possible pause on his tariffs. “We’re going to have one shot at this and no other president is going to do what I’m doing.”Mr. Trump began the day by drawing new battle lines over his so-called reciprocal tariffs, which he plans to impose on certain countries after midnight on Wednesday. The taxes, which can reach as high as 46 percent for some nations, will snap into effect just days after the president imposed a minimum 10 percent levy on nearly every U.S. trading partner.Mr. Trump specifically targeted China, which announced last week it would match the United States by imposing a retaliatory 34 percent tax on imports from America. In a post on Truth Social, the president demanded that Beijing rescind its retribution or face an additional 50 percent U.S. tariff beginning April 9. He also threatened to halt any further negotiations.The escalation could bring the U.S. tariff on Chinese goods to 104 percent, though for some products, the rate is likely to be much higher because of levies that date back to Mr. Trump’s first term. Taken together, it could prove costly for importers bringing in clothing, cellphones, chemicals and machinery from China. American consumers last year bought $440 billion of goods from China, making it the second-largest source of U.S. imports after Mexico.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Media Outlets Face Fallout from Dubious 90-Day Tariff Pause Report

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    The news seemed big: That the Trump administration was considering a 90-day pause to his expansive tariffs.The problem was, it wasn’t true.But in a sign of the precarious nature of the markets right now, an unsubstantiated online report spiked shares sharply, albeit briefly, and continued to climb after CNBC and Reuters relayed the claim. The White House quickly responded saying that the report was “FAKE NEWS,” and CNBC and Reuters issued statements correcting the record.Stocks fell back down after those corrections. Still, the fallout continued to reverberate on Monday, and became a cautionary tale of the risk of using information drawn from the fast-moving echo chamber of social media without first confirming the news independently.Asked earlier in the day about the possibility of a pause on imposing the expansive tariffs announced by President Trump last week, Kevin Hassett, the director of the National Economic Council, said on Fox News: “I think the president is going to decide what the president is going to decide.”Walter Bloomberg, an influential X account that is unaffiliated with Bloomberg News, amplified a post on social media claiming Mr. Hassett had said Mr. Trump was considering a 90-day pause in tariffs.Minutes after the Walter Bloomberg account’s post, Carl Quintanilla, a CNBC anchor, read a headline on air echoing the reports about Hassett. “I think we can go with this headline,” Mr. Quintanilla said, without attributing the news. A person with knowledge of the editorial process at the network said Mr. Quintanilla had read a CNBC headline that was circulated prematurely by mistake.After that, Reuters flashed a headline, citing CNBC. The Walter Bloomberg account later deleted the post. In a direct message on X, the account said to The New York Times that the post had originated minutes earlier from another X account. “Given the market movement — plus 4.5 percent — I deemed the headline reliable and posted it at 10:13,” the Walter Bloomberg account said in the direct message. “A few minutes later, Reuters picked up the story, citing CNBC.”CNBC issued a correction soon after mentioning the potential pause, saying its “aired unconfirmed information in a banner,” adding that its reporters “quickly made a correction on air.” Reuters also issued a correction, saying its report relied on a headline from CNBC. “Reuters has withdrawn the incorrect report and regrets its error,” it said in a statement. More

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    Lawsuit Challenges Trump’s Legal Rationale for Tariffs on China

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    The New Civil Liberties Alliance — a nonprofit group that describes itself as battling “violations by the administrative state” — sued the federal government on Thursday over the means by which it imposed steep new levies on Chinese imports earlier this year.The new filing, which the group said was the first such lawsuit to challenge the Trump administration over its tariffs, set the stage for what may become a closely watched legal battle. It comes on the heels of President Trump’s separate announcement on Wednesday of broader, more extensive tariffs targeting many U.S. trading partners around the world.At issue are the tariffs that Mr. Trump announced on China in February and expanded in March. To impose them, Mr. Trump cited a 1970s law that generally grants the president sweeping powers during an economic emergency, known as the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, or IEEPA.Mr. Trump charged that an influx of illegal drugs from China constituted a threat to the United States. But the alliance argued in the lawsuit, on behalf of Simplified, a Pensacola, Fla.-based company, that the administration had misapplied the law. Instead, the group said the law “does not allow a president to impose tariffs,” but rather is supposed to be reserved for putting in place trade embargoes and sanctions against “dangerous foreign actors.”Port Manatee in Palmetto, Fla., on TuesdayScott McIntyre for The New York TimesMr. Trump cited that same law as one of the legal justifications for the expansive global tariffs he announced with an executive order on Wednesday. That order raised the tariff rate on China to at least 54 percent, adding new levies on top of those that the president imposed earlier this year.Mr. Trump’s new order specifically described the U.S. trade deficit with other nations as “an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and economy of the United States.”For now, the alliance asked the U.S. District Court in the Northern District of Florida to block implementation and enforcement of the president’s earlier tariffs on China. “You can look through the statute all day long; you’re not going to see the president may put tariffs on the American people once he declares an emergency,” said John J. Vecchione, senior litigation counsel for the alliance.A spokesman for the White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment. More

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    Apple Leads Tech Stock Sell-Off After Trump Tariffs, Falling 9 Percent

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    On Thursday morning, Tim Cook, Apple’s chief executive, woke up to the worst day for his company’s stock in five years.Apple shares fell more than 9 percent in response to President Trump’s plan to put steep tariffs on products made abroad. The declines at the world’s most valuable company led a sharp sell-off in tech stocks as the Nasdaq composite index, which is loaded with technology companies, sank nearly 6 percent.Collectively, the largest tech companies, which have been at the forefront of the U.S. economy over the past decade, lost nearly $1 trillion in the day of trading. The declines at Apple, Nvidia, Microsoft, Meta, Alphabet and Amazon resulted in one of the industry’s worst-performing days since the Covid-19 pandemic turned the global economy upside down.Instead of “liberation day,” as Mr. Trump branded his tariff news conference, some market observers began calling it “obliteration day.” Richard Kramer, an analyst at Arete Research, said, “Today is an across-the-board disruption of the American economy, so anything with consumer exposure is getting creamed.”Apple was at the forefront of the tech industry’s drop because it makes almost all of its iPhones, iPads and Macs overseas. The company counts on the sale of those devices for three-quarters of its nearly $400 billion in annual revenue. It will either have to cover the costs of tariffs, cutting into its profits, or pass them on to customers by raising prices, which could reduce the number of devices it sells.The potential hit to the company’s profits triggered one of its steepest declines in its share price during trading since March 2020, when Apple fell 10 percent as fears of the coronavirus triggered a market sell-off. We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    China Will Face at Least 54 Percent Tariffs With Trump’s New Order

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    With the new tariffs announced on Wednesday in Washington, President Trump has now imposed additional tariffs on Chinese goods of 54 percent — an extremely heavy burden that will cause companies to look elsewhere for suppliers.Mr. Trump added a 34 percent tariff on imports from China, to take effect on April 9, on top of two earlier rounds of 10 percent tariffs he had already imposed.Those are just the new tariffs on China since Mr. Trump started his second term in office. During his first term, he put tariffs of 25 percent on a wide range of Chinese industrial goods and 7.5 percent on some consumer goods, which former President Joseph R. Biden Jr. left in place.Mr. Trump’s latest action, on what he described as “Liberation Day,” has provoked considerable anger in China. On Thursday, China’s commerce ministry vowed to take countermeasures to “safeguard its own rights and interests.”Many government officials and experts had been hoping that Mr. Trump might follow the World Trade Organization’s free trade rules.He Weiwen, a retired Ministry of Commerce official who is now a senior fellow at the Center for China and Globalization, a Beijing research group, said that Mr. Trump’s actions were the biggest violation ever of the rules of the W.T.O. or its predecessor, the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade.The latest tariffs “will not liberate America, but will only cause new suffering to the American economy and American families,” Mr. He said.China’s official news agency, Xinhua, published an editorial describing the Trump administration’s tariffs as “self-defeating bullying,” and said Washington was “turning trade into an over-simplistic tit-for-tat game.” More

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    With Trump’s Tariffs, the Chasm Between Allies and the U.S. Widens

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    President Trump’s announcement of sweeping tariffs on America’s trading partners has widened the rift between the United States and some of its closest allies while reconfiguring the global economic order.Mr. Trump’s plan, which he unveiled on Wednesday and is calling “reciprocal,” would impose a wave of tariffs on dozens of countries. Among major economies most affected were the European Union, which will face 20 percent tariffs under the plan, and China, which will absorb an additional 34 percent on top of existing levies.“The scope and size of tariffs are both substantial and confirm the worst fears of the proponents of free trade,” said Eswar Prasad, a professor at the Dyson School at Cornell University. “Trump is setting off a new era of protectionism that will reverberate worldwide.”Mexico and Canada, two of the United States’ biggest trading partners, would not be subject to any new tariffs beyond the levies the president had previously announced, on imported vehicles, vehicle parts, steel, aluminum and any other goods not traded under the rules of the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement.The new levies include a base line 10 percent tariff on all countries except Canada and Mexico, as well as additional tariffs based on the tariffs other nations apply to U.S. exports and other barriers the administration has deemed unfair.Asian countries were some of the hardest hit. Tariffs on Japan and India will be more than 20 percent, with nations like Vietnam, Cambodia, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka facing even steeper rates. We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More