Shortly after China announced 84 per cent retaliatory tariffs on American goods, US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told Fox Business Network that Beijing's levy is "unfortunate".
Bessent suggested that China “should not try to devalue their way out of” the tariff war, urging Beijing to come to the table for talks.
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Instead, he said, China needs to punish those exporting fentanyl precursors to the US, an issue which has been long raised by American President Donald Trump.
Fentanyl became a flashpoint in the US-China relations as Trump accused Beijing of having done very little to stop its export to the US. In turn, China had blamed the Trump administration for using the issue as a pretext to raise tariffs, with the Chinese foreign minister describing it as "blackmail".
In his statement further, Treasury secretary Bessent also reportedly noted that allies coming to the US should think about "how to rebalance China".
ALSO READ | China hits back at Donald Trump with 84% retaliatory tariff on US goods
China imposes 84% tariffs on US
Just a while ago, the Chinese finance ministry announced that it was imposing additional tariffs of 84 per cent, up from the previous 34 per cent, on all US goods. The ministry noted that this retaliatory tariff will come into effect from April 10.
{{/usCountry}}Just a while ago, the Chinese finance ministry announced that it was imposing additional tariffs of 84 per cent, up from the previous 34 per cent, on all US goods. The ministry noted that this retaliatory tariff will come into effect from April 10.
{{/usCountry}}In a statement introducing its white paper on trade with the US, China's Commerce ministry said, "If the U.S. insists on further escalating its economic and trade restrictions, China has the firm will and abundant means to take necessary countermeasures and fight to the end."
China also added the names of 12 US entities to its export control list, while 6 others were named in the "unreliable entity" list.
Meanwhile, Beijing also filed a new complaint to the World Trade Organisation on Wednesday against further US tariff measures, the Chinese mission to the WTO said in a statement.
"China filed a WTO complain against United States' further 50% additional tariff measures on Chinese products," the statement cited by news agency Reuters said.
ALSO READ | Donald Trump hits China with 104% tariffs amid ongoing trade tensions
With China's retaliatory tariff announcement, the US stock index futures also took a sharp dive. As hopes of any concessions began to fade, investors scrambled to mark their exit from stocks, industrial commodities and even government bonds.
At 07:21 am (local time), Dow E-minis were down 517 points, or 1.37%, S&P 500 E-minis were down 1.21% to 4,959.75 and Nasdaq 100 E-minis were down 183.75 points, or 1.07%, Reuters reported.
Peter Andersen, founder of Andersen Capital Management, reacted to the dive amid the tariff war and said, "I do think this is a game of 'chicken' in the sense that both sides are upping the barriers."
"What we're seeing now is a complete correlation between any news related to tariffs and the stock market reactions," he added.
Ever since Donald Trump announced his sweeping global reciprocal tariffs last week, the S&P 500 lost more than $5.83 trillion in market value.