US President Donald Trump confirmed that his administration will move ahead with plans to impose a 155 per cent tariff on Chinese imports from November 1, even as he claimed to prefer maintaining friendly relations with Beijing.
The announcement came during a press interaction where Trump was asked whether Washington would consider new tariffs on China, which remains Russia’s largest oil importer.
“Right now, as of November 1st, China will have about 155 per cent tariffs put on it. I don’t think it’s sustainable for them,” Trump said.
Despite his remarks about wanting to be “nice” to China, Trump said that the United States had endured decades of unfair trade practices, forcing his administration to take firm corrective measures.
“I want to be nice to China. But China has been very rough with us over the years because we had presidents that weren’t smart from a business standpoint They allowed China and every other country to take advantage of us,” he said.
Trump pointed out that his trade agreements with the European Union, Japan, and South Korea were all negotiated under the leverage of tariffs, which he described as essential to protecting national interests.
“I made a deal with the European Union. I made a deal with Japan and South Korea. A lot of these deals are great deals. It’s about national security. I was able to do it because of tariffs. We’re getting hundreds of billions, even trillions, of dollars paid into the United States… We’ll start paying off debt,” Trump said.
CHINA ACCUSED OF AGGRESSIVE TRADE STANCE
Trump announced an additional 100 per cent tariff on Chinese goods, “over and above any tariff that they are currently paying,” to take effect on November 1. He claimed the move followed what he described as Beijing’s “extraordinarily aggressive position on trade”.
In a separate post on his Truth Social, Trump said, “It has just been learnt that China has taken an extraordinarily aggressive position on trade in sending an extremely hostile letter to the world, stating that they were going to, effective November 1, 2025, impose large-scale Export Controls on virtually every product they make, and some not even made by them.”
The move marks another step in Trump’s “secondary tariff” approach, which targets nations that indirectly support Russia’s wartime economy through energy trade.
Earlier this year, the United States imposed a 50 per cent tariff on India over its purchases of Russian oil, citing similar concerns. The latest action against China, the world’s largest importer of Russian crude, underscores Washington’s determination to apply economic pressure on multiple fronts.
– Ends
With inputs from agencies
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