Trump escalates trade war as he slaps China with 104% tariffs as global stock markets plummet
8 April 2025, 20:31 | Updated: 9 April 2025, 19:05
Trump has announced 104 per cent tariffs on Chinese goods from Wednesday morning.
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President Trump has refused to 'pause' tariffs despite the plummeting stock market.
Last week, Trump announced a blanket tariff on China of 34 per cent as he slapped levies on nearly all countries across the world.
Last week Beijing announced 34 per cent retaliatory tariffs and Washington has hit back.
On Tuesday Trump has threatened China with an additional 50% tariff - raising the total tariff to 104%.
Trump "believes that China wants to make a deal with the US," said Karoline Leavitt, the US president's spokeswoman:
During the Press Conference Mrs Leavitt also said that 70 countries have reached out for deals - and they're happy to hear from more.
She also the President would gracious but firm if China came to the table.
Read More: Full list of countries hit by Donald Trump's tariff announcement
This comes as Elon Musk has branded one of Donald Trump’s top tariff advisers a “moron” as the rift between the president and his billionaire ally deepens.
The Tesla founder, who recently hit out at Trump’s decision to slap tariffs on countries across the globe, slammed Peter Navarro, the president’s senior counsellor for trade, describing him as “dumber than a sack of bricks.”
It comes after Mr Navarro accused the billionaire of running a “car assembler” rather than a manufacturer.
Musk rejected accusations of being against tariffs because he wants to use “cheap foreign parts”, describing them as “demonstrably false”, and declaring Tesla “has the most American-made cars.”
The next stage of Mr Trump's tariff programme comes into force in the early hours of Wednesday, with import taxes at 20% for goods from European Union nations and 24% from Japan.
The UK government is pushing for a deal with the White House in the hope of easing the 10% tariff on US imports of British goods, along with a 25% tariff on cars and separate import taxes for steel and aluminium.
Hitting out at Musk, Mr Navarro told CNBC: “In many cases, if you go to his Texas plant, a good part of the engines that he gets – which in the EV case are the batteries – come from Japan and come from China. The electronics come from Taiwan.
“What we want – and the difference is in our thinking and Elon’s on this – is that we want the tyres made in Akron. We want the transmissions made in Indianapolis. We want the engines made in Flint and Saginaw. And we want the cars manufactured here.”
He added: “We want them home for our national security.”
A furious Elon Musk then took to Twitter, branding Mr Navarro a “moron” and in one post simply calling him “Peter Retarrdo.”
“Tesla has the most American-made cars. Navarro is dumber than a sack of bricks,” Musk fumed.