Trump threatens 50% tariffs on Chinese goods

U.S. President Donald Trump threatened Monday morning to impose an additional 50 percent tariff on Chinese goods if China does not lift the 34 percent tariff on all U.S. imports announced on Friday.

Trump's announcement was the latest escalation in an ongoing trade conflict that has roiled markets for three straight sessions. On April 2, Trump announced plans to impose a 10% tariff on all imports and impose different "reciprocal" tariffs according to the situation of each country. The 24 per cent reciprocal tariff on China, combined with the 20 per cent tariff imposed in February, brings the total tariff on Chinese imports to 54 per cent, which will take effect on April 9.

Trump reiterated in a post on the "Truth Social" website on Monday morning: "Any country that retaliates against the United States and imposes additional tariffs on top of its long-term abuse of tariffs will immediately be subject to substantial increases, which will be much higher than the tariffs originally set." Trump wrote: "Therefore, if China does not cancel its 34% tariff increase... by tomorrow, April 8, 2025, the United States will impose an additional 50% tariff on China from April 9." Trump added: "All negotiations with China for talks with us on their demands will be terminated!"

once implemented, U.S. tariffs on Chinese imports will reach 104 percent on April 9. China's 34 percent retaliatory tariff on U.S. imports will take effect on April 10.

Equity Research Analyst the report says u.S. tariffs will affect U.S. chemical producers primarily by affecting demand rather than trade. Jefferies Group (Jefferies LLC) equity analyst Lawrence Alexander (Laurence Alexander) pointed out in a research report released on April 3: "For chemicals, the most important impact of US tariff policy is on demand. Net impact."

Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC equity analyst Vincent Andrews (Vincent Andrews) similarly focused on demand in a research note released April 4. Andrews said: "The chemical industry serves a diverse range of end markets, with a high concentration in agriculture, automotive, construction, consumer durables, consumer essentials (packaging), electronics, healthcare, general industry, etc. Therefore, we believe that the impact of tariffs on demand in these different end markets is likely to be the most important [key performance indicator], especially for those products that are net imports of the United States."

andrews pointed out that the most relevant imported products to the companies Morgan Stanley analysts are looking at include: fertilizers, mainly from the Middle East; crop chemical inputs and general crop chemicals, mainly from India and China; lithium, mainly from South America and Australia, but the lithium in batteries also comes from China; methylene diphenyl isocyanate and epoxy resin, mainly from China