President Donald Trump said that his team was discussing a 10% tariff on China and that the duty could take effect as early as Feb. 1.
“We’re talking about a tariff of 10% on China based on the fact that they’re sending fentanyl to Mexico and Canada,” the president said, speaking to reporters at the White House on Tuesday evening.
“Probably Feb. 1 is the date we’re looking at,” he added.
Fentanyl, a synthetic opioid, is an addictive drug that’s led to tens of thousands of overdose deaths each year in the U.S. Reducing illicit supplies of the drug, precursors of which are mostly produced in China and Mexico, has become an area in which Washington and Beijing have agreed to cooperate.
Trump said Friday that he spoke with Chinese President Xi Jinping over the phone about fentanyl and trade. The Chinese side’s readout said Xi called for cooperation and cast the two countries’ economic ties as mutually beneficial.
There are “no winners” in a trade war, China’s Vice Premier Ding Xuexiang, told the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, on Tuesday, according to an official translation. He called for international efforts to support “economic globalization” and “distribute it better.”
The offshore Chinese yuan initially strengthened, before weakening to trade at 7.2796 against the greenback.
Major Chinese state-run and financial media did not mention the proposed China tariffs, while highlighting other Trump headlines such as his warning of duties on the European Union.
The U.S. is China’s largest trading partner on a single-country basis. China’s imports from the U.S. fell 0.1% in dollar terms last year, while exports grew 4.9%, according to official data accessed through Wind Information.
The data showed China’s trade surplus with the U.S. in 2024 was $361 million, higher than the $316.9 million reported for 2020, the last full year of Trump’s first term. Back then, the White House had raised tariffs on Chinese goods in an attempt to increase the country’s imports of U.S. goods, and address longstanding concerns of U.S. businesses in China. Beijing had reciprocated with duties of its own.
“If the US imposed an additional 10 percent tariff on China and China responded in kind, US GDP would be $55 billion less over the four years of the second Trump administration, and $128 billion less in China,” the U.S.-based Peterson Institute for International Economics said in a Jan. 17 report.
Planned tariffs on U.S. neighbors
Trump also noted on Tuesday that his team was talking about a tariff of “approximately 25%” on Mexico and Canada.
He made similar comments a day earlier, noting that levies on Mexico and Canada could take place as early as February.
“We’re thinking in terms of 25% (levies) on Mexico and Canada, because they’re allowing a vast number of people” over the border, he said on Monday.
While campaigning in 2024, Trump had threatened imposing tariffs upward of 60% on Chinese goods. As recently as November, he called for “an additional 10% Tariff” on China, according to a post on his social media platform Truth Social.
Correction: An earlier version of this story misstated which countries would be subject to a 25% levy. Those nations are Mexico and Canada.