China unveiled a series of retaliatory measures against the U.S. on Tuesday, shortly after U.S. tariffs on Chinese goods kicked into effect, raising concerns of a broader trade war between the world’s two largest economies.
China’s finance ministry said Tuesday it will impose additional tariffs of 15% on coal and liquified natural gas imports from the U.S. and 10% higher duties on American crude oil, agricultural machinery and certain cars, starting Feb. 10.
China reiterated that the imposition of additional levies of 10% by the U.S. “seriously violates the rules of the World Trade Organization … destructs the normal bilateral economic and trade activities” according to a CNBC translation of the statement in Chinese.
In a separate statement Tuesday, Chinese commerce ministry and customs officials announced to impose export controls on a range of items and technologies related to certain critical minerals, including tungsten, tellurium, ruthenium, molybdenum and ruthenium.
China’s tariff announcement is more of a “symbolic move for now,” said Louise Loo, China lead economist at Oxford Economics, who estimates the additional duties could raise the effective tariff rate on U.S. imports into China by close to 2 percentage points.
Loo, however, cautioned that a second U.S.-China trade war was “clearly in the early stage” and sees “a very high likelihood” of further rounds of tariffs from the two countries.