It was on Monday that Trump escalated the trade conflict with China. For several months, the USA has had import tariffs of 20 percent against China, but last week Trump announced that the USA will add 34 percent on top of that.
This led Beijing to respond with the same percentage, 34, against American goods. The Chinese response prompted Trump to raise the stakes and on Monday he gave an ultimatum: if Beijing does not withdraw its retaliatory tariffs by Tuesday, he will add an additional 50 percent in punitive tariffs.
Now the White House is announcing that the tariffs will become a reality from midnight. In total, it is thus about 104 percent tariff surcharge on all goods imported to the USA from China.
"China will never accept this. If the USA insists on going its own way, China will fight it to the end", said a spokesperson for the Chinese government earlier on Tuesday.
