(July 24): Donald Trump’s new tariffs of 12.5% on China might irk Beijing without provoking a retaliation, even as the US president rebuilds a protectionist wall after the Supreme Court struck down his initial levies.
The duties, announced by the Trump administration on Thursday, are in line with tariff levels it had proposed last month on 60 trading partners, citing what it said were inadequate efforts to address forced labour.
The latest shift means China will face an effective US levy of 22.2%, 1.4 percentage points higher than under the previous framework, according to Bloomberg Economics. It estimates China’s burden relative to other trading partners will climb slightly to 11.5 percentage points above the global average.
The new rates replace global duties of 10% that expired on July 24. China has yet to make an official comment about the new tariff regime, though officials have previously described unilateral levies as economic bullying and sought to project their nation as a champion of free trade.
“Beijing will surely express its opposition to tariffs,” said Tianchen Xu, a senior China analyst with the Economist Intelligence Unit. “But don’t expect meaningful retaliation this time.”
Strains between the world’s two biggest economies are easing, thanks in large part to a truce in a tariff fight that at one point last year saw US levies surge to as high as 145%. The one-year deal — unveiled at the summit between Trump and President Xi Jinping in South Korea and set to expire in November, unless extended — has led to a suspension of some tariffs, rare-earth curbs and investigations into China’s shipbuilders.
Under the terms of an agreement reached in Malaysia last October, the effective rate on Chinese imports into the US reached about 30% and was later reduced after some levies were struck down by the Supreme Court. In May, China signaled it would accept some increase in US tariffs to the level negotiated last year and would continue talks to extend the trade truce.
Washington and Beijing have sought to stabilise ties further following a leaders’ summit in Beijing in May. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Wednesday that the two sides are moving towards establishing investment and trade boards aimed at deepening engagement between the world’s two largest economies ahead of Xi’s expected visit to the US in September.
Trump earlier this month said he anticipates Xi will travel to Washington around Sept 24, coinciding with the opening of the United Nations General Assembly in New York. Rubio said he expects Xi “will have a very positive visit when he comes to Washington”.
“The US administration’s shift to a new tariff regime will barely move the dial on levies on China. For China’s export machine, any impact will be hard to see. For growth, the picture hasn’t changed,” say Chang Shu and David Qu of Bloomberg Economics.
A separate raft of investigations by Washington includes a review of US trading partners’ excess manufacturing capacity. It’s unclear when the findings of that probe will be released, or whether any future duties from that probe would be stacked on top of those proposed under the forced labour investigation
“The US will eventually impose more tariffs on the world — including China,” said Xu. But the US is unlikely to single out China and will keep the overall tariff rate below 32%, he said.
Though tensions between the US and China have cooled, they still have to contend with tech curbs, sanctions and other hurdles that remain in place. The US share of China’s total exports has reached a historic low of near 9%, about half its peak in 2017–2018.
The Trump administration has also been airing concerns about China’s adherence to the tariff truce. US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer recently said Beijing’s compliance on rare earths was “not perfect”.
China’s shipments of rare-earth magnets to the US remain well below pre-trade war levels despite the agreement, with customs data for the first half showing they were about 20% below the average level seen between 2022 and 2024.
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