The customs dispute between China and the USA continues to come to a head. While US President Donald Trump initially rushes back to most states and exposes parts of his additional tariffs for at least 90 days, he is now all the more tough against Beijing – the two biggest economies are available. “A lack of respect” Trump accuses the Chinese, although they only reacted to the US measures with counter-tariffs.
The United States was “blackmailed,” said the Chinese side, and if it had to be, you will “fight to the end”. The result: While the United States is now demanding additional tariffs of 145 percent on imports from China, Beijing wants to raise 125 percent on US goods.
So it could go on for China
For the already weakening Chinese economy, the escalation in the trade dispute is another severe stress. Chinese companies threaten sales losses in billions. Many export -oriented factories could be forced to delete orders and to reduce their production. Despite years of tension, the United States is still a central trading partner.
“The loss of the US market will consider more pressure on Chinese exporters to find alternative markets,” says business expert Jacob Guners from the Berlin Institute for China Research Merics. In these countries, however, the pressure will also increase to take defensive trade measures.
Replacing the previously existing mid -range consumers will not be easy. According to Gunter, Europe could therefore be an alternative market as the “last really big, open, still very rich, still very rich economic area”.
These companies are affected
A bitter blow are the new tariffs for Chinese companies such as Temu and Shein, which have built up a successful business model with the sale of cheap products to the USA. A few days ago, the party organ “Volkszeitung” already indicated that Beijing would expand the economic support measures in order to cushion the consequences of punitive tariffs.
Not only Chinese companies deliver to the USA. US corporations such as Apple also have their products manufactured for the home market in Chinese factories. As a result of the tariffs, jobs could also be endangered in China. The massively increased US supplements of up to 145 percent are likely to make many Chinese goods in the United States so strong that China as a production location is significantly more attractive.
Where the US economy gets under pressure
China’s countermeasures are also painful for US exporters. The US agriculture, which previously delivered large amounts of soy, corn and meat to China, is particularly hard. These products are hardly competitive with the new tariffs.
The Chinese customs commission itself admits that goods with such high taxes no longer have market acceptance. In fact, this means that the import is no longer worth it economically. If the United States further increases its tariffs, Beijing no longer wants to react to it – according to the motto: it can’t be worse anymore.
Pressure also comes from Brussels: EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen is considering taxes for tech giants such as Google and Meta. If negotiations in the trade conflict with Trump were not satisfactory, there are many possible countermeasures, said the German “Financial Times”. “For example, one could levy the advertising revenues of digital services,” she said.
Effects beyond the US China ratio
Even in global trade, supposedly non -involved actors may have to adjust to higher prices. Because in the widely branched value chains, individual components of an end product will eventually pass the USA or China. Gunter therefore expects increasing prices outside of the China USA relationships.
However, the expert does not expect the tariffs to remain in force for a long time. Both sides could, for example, issue exceptions to their export controls in order to get access to important technology again, as in the case of China, or to come back to important raw materials in the United States, which mainly come from China.
China counters with charm offensive
The economic prospects in China are cloudy. But Beijing also senses to be able to drive in a geopolitical dividend. The People’s Republic positions itself as a responsible great power with charm offensives and wants better relationships with other trading partners.
At a meeting with the Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, Beijing campaigned for working with the EU in the global trade conflict. Before that, EU trade commissioner Maros Sefcovic and the Chinese Minister of Commerce Wang, Wang Wentao, had also talked about more economic exchange on both sides.
