'Trade War Warning' Trump: "If Re-elected, Tariffs on China Will Exceed 60%"

Appearing on Fox News: "China is Using the U.S."
Preview of U.S.-China Trade War Season 2

Former U.S. President Donald Trump directly stated that if he succeeds in regaining the presidency in the upcoming November election, he could impose ultra-high tariffs exceeding 60% on China. If a second Trump administration becomes a reality, it is expected that the U.S.-China conflict, which has been worsening from trade wars to advanced technology supremacy competition, will escalate further.

[Image source=Yonhap News]

In an interview with Fox News' 'Sunday Morning Futures' aired on the 4th (local time), when asked whether he would uniformly apply a 60% tariff rate on China if re-elected, Trump replied, "No," adding, "It will probably be higher than that."

Earlier, the U.S. daily Washington Post (WP) reported that Trump was considering applying a uniform 60% tariff rate on Chinese goods if he returned to the White House, and Trump himself confirmed this. Currently, the average tariff rate the U.S. imposes on Chinese imports is 12%.

Regarding the imposition of tariffs, Trump said, "It has to be done," and pointed out, "You know, it's not that I want to hurt China, I want to be friendly with China, but they have used us."

In response to concerns that such measures could trigger a U.S.-China trade war, he dismissed criticism by saying, "During my term, I handled China well in every aspect."

The Trump administration imposed a 25% high tariff on certain Chinese products in 2018, citing China's unfair economic practices and trade imbalance. According to the Tax Foundation in Washington, the Trump administration imposed a total of $80 billion (approximately 107.1 trillion KRW) in tariffs on $380 billion (approximately 508.6 trillion KRW) worth of Chinese imports between 2018 and 2019. China retaliated by imposing tariffs on U.S. imports such as agricultural products and automobiles and filed a complaint against the U.S. at the World Trade Organization (WTO). The succeeding Joe Biden administration, inaugurated in 2021, has maintained high tariffs on Chinese products and implemented export control measures related to advanced technologies such as semiconductor equipment and AI semiconductors.

Earlier, Trump’s camp also announced plans to raise tariffs by 10 percentage points not only on Chinese goods but on all foreign imports, including those from allied countries, if re-elected. For example, if the current tariff rate on imports is 5%, it would be raised to 15%. Accordingly, if a second Trump administration materializes, concerns are raised that not only U.S.-China tensions will escalate but protectionism will rapidly spread worldwide.

Within the U.S., criticism has emerged that the tariff increases during the first Trump administration triggered inflation and weakened the competitiveness of American products. According to the conservative think tank American Action Forum, Americans have suffered losses amounting to $195 billion (approximately 261 trillion KRW) since 2018 due to the trade war with China. The U.S.-China Business Council reported that the conflict between the two countries has resulted in a loss of more than 245,000 American jobs. Deutsche Bank estimated that the stock market also took a significant hit, with trillions of dollars wiped out.

The British think tank Oxford Economics projected that if the U.S. ends normal trade relations with China, the U.S. economy would suffer losses of $1.6 trillion (approximately 2,141.6 trillion KRW) and more than 700,000 jobs would be lost. Since China is the third-largest trading partner of the U.S. after Mexico and Canada, the impact of U.S.-China decoupling on the U.S. economy would be unimaginably large. As of November last year, China accounted for 11.7% of the U.S.'s total foreign trade.

Bloomberg News reported, "As the market increasingly prices in the possibility of Trump's election, (Trump’s remarks) signal a strengthening hawkish stance toward the U.S.'s largest goods supplier," adding, "Attempts to curb the economic ties between the world's two largest economies are gaining support from some U.S. lawmakers."