After Trump announced a 34-percent new tariff on imports of Chinese goods -- taking the added rate imposed this year to 54 percent -- Beijing said it would slap an equivalent across-the-board tariff on US goods, among other countermeasures.
China used to target specific industries in a "mirror response" to US export restrictions, said Emily Benson of consulting firm Minerva Technology Policy Advisors.
But its broader plan unveiled Friday marks a "pretty significant warning shot" to the Trump administration to hold off further measures, she told AFP.
What is the state of US-China trade, and what US sectors stand to be impacted?
- US exports -
The United States exported $144.6 billion in goods to China in 2024, much less than the $439.7 billion it imported, Commerce Department data shows.
Among its exports, key sectors include electrical and electronic equipment and various fuels, alongside oilseed and grains.
But China likely has more confidence to retaliate this time compared with Trump's first presidency, when he engaged in a tit-for-tat tariff war with Beijing.
"While the US is still obviously a very important market, fewer firms are now existentially dependent on US suppliers," said Lynn Song, ING chief economist for Greater China.
She added that Beijing has also made efforts towards technological self-sufficiency.
- Agricultural goods -
"US farmers will bear a heavy burden," said Asia Society Policy Institute vice president Wendy Cutler.
Their agricultural exports to China could "become too expensive to be competitive" with Beijing's added tariffs, she told AFP.
Soybeans, oilseeds and certain grains were a key US export to China, amounting to $13.4 billion last year, US trade data showed.
"China bought 52 percent of our (soybean) exports in 2024," said American Soybean Association chief economist Scott Gerlt.
Given the size of its purchases, China cannot easily be replaced, he told AFP.
Soybean prices plunged on Friday's news.
- Fuels, machinery -
China also imported $14.7 billion of various fuels and oils from the United States last year.
Tariffs could impact the oil and gas industry in states like Texas, which alongside Louisiana saw such exports to China surge in 2023, said a US-China Business Council report.
And the US exported some $15.3 billion in electrical machinery to China last year, official trade data showed.
But semiconductor shipments have faltered on expanding US export controls on advanced tech.
- Chips impact -
Besides tariffs, China has restricted exports of rare earth elements and taken action against US firms -- including drone companies and those in the defense and aerospace sectors.
"China controls about 69 percent of rare earth element mining. They also control about 90 percent of refining," said Benson of Minerva Technology Policy Advisors.
"That's going to probably be a chokepoint moving forward," she added. This could affect semiconductor manufacturing, magnets, optics and lasers.
"Some of these are targeted, of course, at chips," she said.
With Washington and Beijing turning to a growing range of tools in their conflict, Benson warned that the US "is relatively exposed to these Chinese controls" without an industrial policy response providing "a major cash infusion to scale up domestic production."
Where things stand in the US-China trade war
Beijing (AFP) April 4, 2025 -
China has hit back against US President Donald Trump's "liberation day" tariffs, slapping 34 percent levies on all imports of American goods.
AFP looks at how an escalating trade war between the United States and China is playing out -- and what impact it might have.
- Why is China so vulnerable to tariffs? -
Trade between the world's two largest economies is vast.
Sales of Chinese goods to the United States last year totalled more than $500 billion -- 16.4 percent of the country's exports, according to Beijing's customs data.
And China imported $143.5 billion in goods from the United States in 2024, according to the office of the US Trade Representative.
But China has long drawn Trump's ire with a trade surplus with the United States that reached $295.4 billion last year, according to the US Commerce Department's Bureau of Economic Analysis.
Beijing's leaders have been reluctant to disrupt the status quo, in part because China's export-driven economy is particularly sensitive to vicissitudes in international trade.
US duties also threaten to harm China's fragile economic recovery as it struggles with a long-running debt crisis in the property sector and persistently low consumption -- a downturn Beijing had sought to slow with broad fiscal stimulus last year.
But an intensified trade war will likely mean China cannot peg its hopes for strong economic growth this year on its exports, which reached record highs in 2024.
"The US tariffs on Chinese imports announced so far this year could fully negate the lift from the fiscal stimulus measures announced so far," Frederic Neumann, Chief Asia Economist at HSBC, told AFP.
- What impact will the new US tariffs have? -
Trump's new tariffs slap 10 percent levies on imports from around the world.
But China has been hit particularly hard -- the latest salvo adds 34 percent to a 20 percent rate imposed last month, bringing the total additional tariffs on imports from the Asian economic powerhouse imposed by this Trump administration to 54 percent.
The tariffs come into effect in stages -- a 10 percentage point bump on Thursday, followed by the full levy on April 9.
China is also under sector-specific tariffs on steel, aluminium and car imports.
Analysts expect the new levies to take a significant chunk out of the country's GDP, which Beijing's leadership hope will grow five percent this year.
Julian Evans-Pritchard, Head of China Economics at Capital Economics, said in a note he expects the economic hit to range from 0.5 to one percent of GDP.
Likely to be hit hardest are China's top exports to the United States -- the country is the dominant supplier of goods from electronics and electrical machinery to textiles and clothing, according to the Peterson Institute of International Economics.
And analysts also warn that because of the crucial role Chinese goods play in supplying US firms, the tariffs may also have major knock-on effects.
"US imports from China are dominated by capital goods and industrial materials instead of consumer goods," Gene Ma, Head of China Research at the Institute of International Finance, told AFP.
"The tariff will hurt US manufacturers as well as consumers."
"This trade war not only has a destructive impact on China but also on the global trade system," Chen Wenling, Chief Economist at the China Center for International Economic Exchanges in Beijing, said.
- How has Beijing responded? -
Beijing made good on its vow of "countermeasures" against the United States on Friday, slapping 34 percent levies on all US products coming into the country in measures that will take effect next Thursday.
It also said it would impose export controls on a number of rare earth elements used in medical technology and consumer electronics.
US exports to China last year were dominated by agricultural products, primarily oilseeds and grains, according to the US-China Business Council.
Oil and gas closely follows, with pharmaceuticals and semiconductors also among major exports.
In 2022, the Council said, over 900,000 American jobs were supported by US exports of goods and services to China.
Those measures come on top of tariffs imposed by Beijing last month -- 15 percent on imports of coal and liquefied natural gas from the United States and 10 percent on crude oil, agricultural machinery, big-engined vehicles and pickup trucks.
Analysts say those moves are designed to hit Trump's support base -- those in rural US heartlands that voted him into office last year.
Beijing has called for "dialogue" to resolve the dispute, but any deal will take time.
"There are still chances for the two parties to resume talks in the following months," Betty Wang at Oxford Economics told AFP.
"But historical experience suggests that tariffs are typically quick to rise and slow to fall."
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