Market News

BY Joe Harker

Donald Trump has hiked the tariffs on China up to 245 percent, with the White House saying this is 'as a result of its retaliatory actions'.

Trump had already rowed back on many of his tariffs for other countries, dropping them down to 10 percent, but intensified the ones on China with the country saying it was 'not afraid to fight' a trade war with the US.

US tariffs on China have risen chunk by chunk, and then spiked high after they retaliated in kind by raising tariffs of their own before the US started hitting a whopping 145 percent on imports from China.

The White House said that since China 'retaliated' they have suffered higher tariffs, and their imports to the US now face tariffs of up to 245 percent.

It's the latest move in this tit-for-tat trade war where the tit has made tat more expensive.

That likely won't extend to everything coming from China, as the US President announced that some electronic goods like smartphones which are made in China would be exempt from the tariffs, but US officials then said there would be a 'semiconductor tariff' instead.

China has warned Trump to 'stop whining' about tariffs after he has repeatedly escalated a trade war between the US and one of its main trading partners, with Chinese Premier Xi Jinping in Vietnam speaking out against 'bullying' while Trump has claimed he's visiting to 'screw' the US.

The country's state media has been rather scathing about America, saying: "The US is not getting ripped off by anybody. The problem is the US has been living beyond its means for decades.

"It consumes more than it produces. It has outsourced its manufacturing and borrowed money in order to have a higher standard of living than it's entitled to based on its productivity. Rather than being ‘cheated’, the US has been taking a free ride on the globalization train.

"The US should stop whining about itself being a victim in global trade and put an end to its capricious and destructive behavior.

"Instead, it should commit itself to working with its trading partners to establish a fair, free and WTO-centered multilateral trading system that is in line with the times."

Trump, meanwhile, has been claiming that his tariffs were bringing in more money for the US government and making products cheaper for Americans.

Writing on social media, he said: "The United States is taking in RECORD NUMBERS in Tariffs, with the cost of almost all products going down, including gasoline, groceries, and just about everything else.

“Likewise, INFLATION is down. Promises Made, Promises Kept!"

He has also claimed that if other countries don't make a trade deal with the US then higher tariff levels could return, and chastised China for not negotiating 'fairly' as an example of what might happen to other nat