President Donald Trump announced on 10th October that he would implement new 100% tariffs on imports from China starting next month in response to what he called “aggressive” moves by China regarding export controls.
In a social media post, Trump said the new tariffs would take effect on Nov. 1.
Trump indicated the action comes in reaction to China’s “extraordinarily aggressive stance on trade” regarding export controls.
“It has just been discovered that China has taken an incredibly aggressive stance on Trade by sending the World a very hostile letter telling us that they were going to, effective November 1st, 2025, impose massive scale Export Controls on almost all products they produce, and some not produced by them,” Trump stated in the post, referring to such an action as “unprecedented” and a “moral disgrace.”
Tariffs on U.S. imports from China are now at 30%, reduced from the peak of 145% this year.
Trump also stated the new China tariffs would be “over and above any Tariff that they are currently paying.”
Besides new tariffs, Trump also stated that the U.S. would put “Export Controls on any and all critical software.”
The tweet followed Trump’s threat of fresh tariffs on China during the day, which prompted a stock selloff. The Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 385 points, or 0.8%. Although the S&P 500 declined 1.25% and the Nasdaq, which is heavy in technology stocks, lost 1.75%.
Trump made the announcement one day after China moved to impose new limits on rare earth minerals, crucial elements in the manufacture of semiconductors for everything from artificial intelligence to household appliances.
Later on Friday, speaking to the press from the Oval Office, Trump referred to China’s recent actions as “shocking” and declared that they “came out of the blue.”
Trump explained, “This is not something that I initiated. This was a reaction to something that they did. And they really weren’t targeting us. They targeted the entire world.”
Nevertheless, he said, “We’ll see what happens.”
In a previous social media statement regarding the China trade policy, Trump stated, “There is no way that China should be allowed to hold the World ‘captive'” but that appears to have been their strategy for some time,” Trump asserted.
In response, Trump threatened to impose a “massive increase” in tariffs on Chinese imports into the US, despite saying the action would be “potentially painful.”
Earlier on Friday, Trump also hinted he could threaten to call off a meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping in the near future.
“This was an actual surprise, not just to me, but to all the Leaders of the Free World. I was supposed to meet President Xi in two weeks, at APEC, in South Korea, but now there apparently is no reason to do so,” Trump wrote in his earlier post.
Addressing journalists afterwards, Trump indicated that he was not calling off the meeting with Xi, stating he still intends to travel to South Korea, but he wasn’t certain whether the meeting would continue.
“We’ll see what happens,” said Trump.
This follows as the US-China trade truce remains in place but is due to lapse in less than a month.
