US President Donald Trump said Friday he would impose a 100% tariff on China “over and above any tariff that they are currently paying” effective November 1 or sooner – massively escalating his trade war amid a heated dispute over export controls on rare earths.
Trump on Oct 10 said he was lifting tariffs on Chinese exports to the US to 100 per cent and imposing export controls on “any and all critical software” in a reprisal to recently announced export controls by China “on each and every element of production having to do with rare earths, and virtually anything else they can think of, even if it’s not manufactured in China.”
In a Truth Social post, Trump wrote that China had “taken an extraordinarily aggressive position on trade in sending an extremely hostile letter to the world, stating that they were going to, effective November 1st, 2025, impose large scale export controls on virtually every product they make, and some not even made by them. This affects all countries, without exception, and was obviously a plan devised by them years ago.”
The president warned he would impose the new tariff November 1 “or sooner, depending on any further actions or changes taken by China.”
“Based on the fact that China has taken this unprecedented position, and speaking only for the U.S.A., and not other nations who were similarly threatened, starting November 1st, 2025 (or sooner, depending on any further actions or changes taken by China), the United States of America will impose a tariff of 100% on China, over and above any tariff that they are currently paying,” Trump said on his Truth Social platform. “Also on November 1st, we will impose export controls on any and all critical software.”
The new tariffs built on an earlier post Friday on Truth Social in which Trump said that “there seems to be no reason” to meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in South Korea later this month.
“I have not spoken to President Xi because there was no reason to do so. This was a real surprise, not only to me, but to all the leaders of the free world. I was to meet President Xi in two weeks, at APEC, in South Korea, but now there seems to be no reason to do so,” he noted.
He added: “There are many other countermeasures that are, likewise, under serious consideration.”
In his post, Trump highlighted that China had been sending letters to countries throughout the world informing them of plans to impose the export controls.
“Nobody has ever seen anything like this but, essentially, it would ‘clog’ the markets, and make life difficult for virtually every country in the world, especially for China. We have been contacted by other countries who are extremely angry at this great trade hostility, which came out of nowhere,” Trump wrote.
“There is no way that China should be allowed to hold the world ‘captive,’ but that seems to have been their plan for quite some time, starting with the “Magnets” and, other Elements that they have quietly amassed into somewhat of a Monopoly position, a rather sinister and hostile move, to say the least,” Trump continued.
But if Beijing follows that course, “the U.S. has Monopoly positions also, much stronger and more far reaching than China’s,” he added.
Washington and Beijing engaged in a tit-for-tat tariffs war earlier this year that threatened to effectively halt trade between the world’s two largest economies. Both sides eventually agreed to de-escalate tensions but the truce has been “shaky.”
Friday’s remarks by Trump signalled the biggest rupture in relations in four months and immediately raised questions about whether an economic truce between Beijing and Washington can survive.
