WASHINGTON, DC — Recent exemptions to sweeping US import tariffs may be short-lived, top officials said Sunday, with Donald Trump warning that no one was “getting off the hook,” and China
Recent exemptions to sweeping US import tariffs may be short-lived, top officials said Sunday, with Donald Trump warning that no one was “getting off the hook,” and China urging the US to simply abandon its aggressive trade levies policy altogether.
The world’s two largest economies have been locked in a fast-moving, high-stakes game of brinkmanship since US President Trump launched a global tariff assault that particularly targeted Chinese imports.
Tit-for-tat exchanges have seen US levies imposed on China rise to 145 percent, and Beijing setting a retaliatory 125 percent band on US imports.
The US side had appeared to dial down the pressure slightly on Friday, listing tariff exemptions for smartphones, laptops, semiconductors and other electronic products for which China is a major source.
But Trump asserted Sunday that there was “no Tariff “exception’” on those products, saying they remained subject to a 20 percent rate in “a different Tariff ‘bucket.’”
In a post on his Truth Social platform, he said “Nobody is getting off the hook,” adding: “We will not be held hostage by other Countries, especially hostile trading Nations like China.
