China strikes back with 125% tariffs on U.S. goods as trade war intensifies

China on Friday retaliated against U.S. President Donald Trump’s reciprocal tariffs by raising its levies on U.S. goods to 125% from 84%, the Chinese finance ministry said.

“Even if the U.S. continues to impose higher tariffs, it will no longer make economic sense and will become a joke in the history of world economy,” the ministry said in a statement, according to a CNBC translation.

“With tariff rates at the current level, there is no longer a market for U.S. goods imported into China,” the statement noted, adding that “if the U.S. government continues to increase tariffs on China, Beijing will ignore.”

The Trump administration confirmed to CNBC on Thursday that the U.S. tariff rate on Chinese imports now effectively totals 145%. Trump’s latest executive order boosted reciprocal tariffs on Beijing to 125%, stacked on top of a combined 20% fentanyl-related tariff imposed in February and March.

“This is the end of the escalation in terms of bilateral tariff rates. Both China and the US have sent clear messages, there is no point of raising tariffs further,” said Zhiwei Zhang, president and chief economist at Pinpoint Asset Management.

The next step would be to evaluate the damage to economic activities in the U.S. and China, Zhang said, adding that there is no sign that the two governments would start negotiations and avoid major disruption in the global supply chains.

Unlike the previous rounds of retaliatory measures, Beijing has refrained from announcing further export control measures or widening its so-called “unreliable entity list” with the addition of more American firms, which would subject them to further restrictions while operating in China.

Despite the latest escalation, a spokesperson of China’s commerce ministry reiterated in a separate statement Friday that Beijing is open to negotiate with the U.S. on an equal footing.

Hopes for a U.S.-China deal to resolve trade tensions have faded fast as Beijing has been hitting back in the last week with tit-for-tat duties on American goods and wide-ranging restrictions on U.S. businesses.

“It’s unfortunate that the Chinese actually don’t want to come and negotiate, because they are the worst offenders in the international trading system,” U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told Fox Business on Wednesday after China’s raised tariffs to 84%.

“They have the most imbalanced economy in the history of the modern world, and I can tell you that this escalation is a loser for them,” Bessent said.

Goldman Sachs on Thursday cut its China GDP forecast to 4% given the drag from U.S. trade tensions and slower global growth.

While Chinese exports to the U.S. only account for about 3 percentage points of China’s total GDP, there’s still a significant impact on employment, Goldman Sachs analysts said. They estimate around 10 million to 20 million workers in China are involved with U.S.-bound export businesses.

China on Friday reiterated that it will continue to “resolutely counter-attack and fight to the end” if the U.S. continues to infringe on China’s interests.

In a meeting with Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez on Friday, Chinese President Xi Jinping said “there is no winner in a tariff war and going against the world will only isolate itself,” according to a CNBC-translated government readout. The two leaders pledged to deepen ties in areas including trade, investment and technological innovation.

The White House did not immediately respond to CNBC’s request for comment.

— CNBC’s Lim Hui Jie and Evelyn Cheng contributed to this report.