Deadline for China to avoid 50% extra tariff passes
The deadline President Trump gave China to withdraw their retaliatory tariffs has just now passed.
Trump wrote yesterday on his Truth Social platform “if China does not withdraw its 34% increase above their already long term trading abuses by tomorrow, April 8th, 2025, the United States will impose ADDITIONAL Tariffs on China of 50%, effective April 9th. Additionally, all talks with China concerning their requested meetings with us will be terminated! Negotiations with other countries, which have also requested meetings, will begin taking place immediately. Thank you for your attention to this matter!”
China’s US embassy said yesterday it would not cave to pressure or threats over the additional 50% tariffs. “We have stressed more than once that pressuring or threatening China is not a right way to engage with us. China will firmly safeguard its legitimate rights and interests,” Liu Pengyu, an embassy spokesman, told Agence France-Presse.
Key events
A little more from US trade representative Jamieson Greer’s Senate hearing earlier, per Reuters.
Greer told senators that US companies could feel pain from reworking supply chains after Donald Trump announced his global tariff program.
Greer, who oversees the tariff implementation, told the Senate finance committee that companies should prepare to rework their supply chains for the future and source materials domestically, if needed.
We can’t keep doing the same thing we always did and if companies are having trouble adjusting their supply chain, which are very sensitive to, we have to deal. We can’t do nothing for four years.
Senate confirms Trump’s controversial pick for Pentagon No 3 job
A majority of the Senate has voted to confirm Donald Trump’s controversial nominee Elbridge Colby, a former Department of Defense official known as a China hawk, as undersecretary of defense for policy, the Pentagon’s number three post, Reuters reports.
The Senate voted 54-45 in favor, largely along party lines. Three Democrats voted in favor of Colby and one Republican voted against him, with another Republican not voting. This is despite, the Hill notes, the private concerns from a number of Republican senators about Colby’s past statements and views.
In the role, Colby will be responsible for briefing the defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, on all defense policy matters.
Colby was deputy assistant secretary of defense for strategy and force development during Trump’s first term as president. He is known for arguing that the US military should prioritize competition with China and shift its focus from the Middle East and Europe.
Colby was closely questioned about those views by Democrats and some of Trump’s fellow Republicans during his confirmation hearing. He repeatedly declined to answer when asked if Russian president Vladimir Putin had invaded Ukraine, citing Trump’s ongoing “delicate” diplomacy.
He was strongly supported by those close to Trump, with Vice-President JD Vance, noted by the Hill, introducing “Bridge” as a friend at his confirmation hearing. He also had the backing of Trump’s son, Donald Trump Jr, and close ally Elon Musk.
The only Senate Republican who voted against Colby’s confirmation on Tuesday was Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the party’s former leader.
At his confirmation hearing in March, Colby also was questioned about whether his view of defending Taiwan had softened. Colby said then that Taiwan needs to dramatically increase its defense spending to about 10% of gross domestic product in order to deter a war with China.
Italian PM Giorgia Meloni to travel to US next week for tariff talks with Trump
Italy’s prime minister Giorgia Meloni will travel to the United States next week for talks on tariffs with Donald Trump on 17 April, her office said on Tuesday.
Meloni is facing a diplomatic balancing act as she is an ally of Trump but also under pressure to defend Italy’s export-focused industry.
Italy last year ran the third-largest trade surplus in the European Union for goods with the US, after Germany and Ireland.
The prime minister has called Trump’s decision on tariffs a mistake, but warned that EU countermeasures could escalate a trade war, and called for negotiations to mitigate the crisis.
Countries from the European Union face 25% import tariffs on steel and aluminum and cars and broader tariffs of 20% for almost all other goods under Trump’s policy to hit countries he says impose high barriers to US imports.
Although EU ministers have agreed they should prioritise negotiations, the bloc is set to approve the first retaliatory measures this week.
The Supreme Court has blocked a ruling from a federal judge in California that had ordered the Trump administration to rehire thousands of fired federal workers who had been put on probationary status.
The court’s order said the nonprofit groups that had sued to challenge the firings did not have standing to sue. “The District Court’s injunction was based solely on the allegations of the nine non-profit-organization plaintiffs in this case,” the order says. “But under established law, those allegations are presently insufficient to support the organizations’ standing.
Deadline for China to avoid 50% extra tariff passes
The deadline President Trump gave China to withdraw their retaliatory tariffs has just now passed.
Trump wrote yesterday on his Truth Social platform “if China does not withdraw its 34% increase above their already long term trading abuses by tomorrow, April 8th, 2025, the United States will impose ADDITIONAL Tariffs on China of 50%, effective April 9th. Additionally, all talks with China concerning their requested meetings with us will be terminated! Negotiations with other countries, which have also requested meetings, will begin taking place immediately. Thank you for your attention to this matter!”
China’s US embassy said yesterday it would not cave to pressure or threats over the additional 50% tariffs. “We have stressed more than once that pressuring or threatening China is not a right way to engage with us. China will firmly safeguard its legitimate rights and interests,” Liu Pengyu, an embassy spokesman, told Agence France-Presse.
South Korea’s acting president, Han Duck-soo, said his country would not band together with other countries such as China to push back against the tariffs imposed by President Trump.
“I don’t think that kind of fighting back will improve the situation dramatically,” he said in an interview with CNN. “I don’t think it will be really profitable for the three of us, and especially for Korea.” He added that South Korea “clearly would like to negotiate” with Washington.
Marina Dunbar
Trade Representative Jamieson Greer defended the Trump administration’s decision to apply a 10% tariff on Australia despite a free trade agreement, citing the country’s ban on imports of US beef and pork.
“We should be running up the score in Australia,” Greer said at today’s hearing. “Despite the agreement, they ban our beef, they ban our pork.”
Greer also told senators that negotiations with nations seeking to lower the reciprocal tariffs announced by President Trump last week would proceed country by country.
Greer claims – after first dodging the question – that it will be companies that are heavily reliant on imports from China and Asia more widely, rather than ordinary Americans, that will bear the burden of the “short-term pain” resulting from Trump’s tariff policy.
Back at Greer’s Senate hearing, he was asked to speak to Australia denying the US access to it’s huge market in beef as a result of [you guessed it] “non-tariff barriers to trade”.
Greer says yes, the US imports a lot of beef from Australia whereas Australia doesn’t take any.
He also highlights US pork, which, he says, Australia blocks “based on specious fake science grounds”.
Treasury secretary Scott Bessent says he expects a couple of big deals ‘very quickly’ on tariffs
Earlier this morning, Treasury secretary Scott Bessent said he expected a couple of big deals “very quickly” in relation to Donald Trump’s latest tariff announcement.
NewsNation reports that Bessent told reporters:
We have one of the Vietnamese officials coming in this week, the Japanese are very eager to get over, and I think you’re going to see a couple of big trading partners make deals very quickly.
His comments saw stocks rally at the Wall Street open as traders appear to be hoping that some of the tariffs announced last week will be negotiated away, as some countries call the White House to agree to talks.
Exceptions or exemptions to tariffs not expected in the near term, says US trade representative Greer
Back at Greer’s Senate hearing, Greer says exemptions to Donald Trump’s global tariffs are not expected in the near term.
The president has been clear, again, that he’s not doing exemptions or exceptions in the near term.
Greer said that “Swiss cheese” in the process would undermine the goal of trade reciprocity.
The trade representative, who oversees the implementation of the tariffs, also said there is no particular timeline for trade negotiations.
Hugo Lowell
Away from Greer’s Senate hearing for a moment.
Mike Howell, the head of the conservative Heritage Foundation’s so-called oversight project, is expected to advance an inflammatory conspiracy theory before the Senate judiciary committee that pardons signed by Joe Biden are invalid because they were signed by autopen.
The snipe will be targeted at Senator Adam Schiff, who received a pre-emptive pardon over his work on the House committee investigation into the January 6 Capitol riot that Howell will say is void, a person familiar with the matter said.
In alleging that Schiff’s pardon is invalid, Howell would elevate a conspiracy theory that has taken hold in Maga circles that the former president was too mentally impaired to sign pardons himself and unaware of what documents he was endorsing.
The autopen feature uses a real pen to copy a person’s actual signature. Presidents – including Trump – have used autopens for decades, and the justice department said in a memo two decades ago that presidents could direct an aide to “affix his signature” to bills.
But Howell, leaning into concerns about Biden’s age and mental acuity, started a campaign last month to cast doubt on the legitimacy on the former president’s executive actions.
After the Missouri attorney general questioned in a letter whether Biden had the capacity to sign pardons and executive orders, Howell seized on the matter and sparked a rightwing frenzy with a conspiratorial post on X: “Whoever controlled the autopen controlled the presidency.”
Howell is expected to fan the flames of the idea that a deep state cabal was secretly running the country instead of Biden before the Senate judiciary committee, during a hearing into the Freedom of Information Act.
But there is no evidence that Biden did not have the mental capacity to sign executive actions – or that they were not authorized.
Greer tells senators that China has not indicated that it wants to work toward trade reciprocity.
Unfortunately, China for many years seems to be choosing its own path on market access. They elected to announce retaliation, other countries did not. Other countries have signaled that they’d like to find a path toward reciprocity. China has not said that and we will see where that goes.
Greer he is due to have a call with his Indian counterpart to discuss India’s “significant non-tariff barriers”.
Answering a question, Greer says, yes, he will try to include commitments on matters such as intellectual property, technical barriers to trade and science-based agricultural rules in his talks with India.
Greer says the administration is seeking more market access in Japan regarding agriculture and in terms of “structural impediments to some [US] industrial goods in terms of standards and regulations”.
Greer says nearly 50 countries, including Argentina, India, Vietnam and Israel, have approached him personally to discuss Trump’s tariffs policy and start negotiations to reduce their tariffs on the US.
US trade representative Jamieson Greer testifies on Donald Trump’s trade and tariff policies before Senate committee
US trade representative Jamieson Greer has been testifying on Donald Trump’s trade and tariff policies before the Senate finance committee.
Greer said Trump imposed tariffs to address the “emergency” of the “massive” US trade deficit. He calls the deficit “an economic and national security emergency”, adding: “We can’t ignore it.”
He cited “higher tariffs imposed by other countries on the US, as well as the effect of [there’s that phrase again] non-tariff measures that promote other countries’ exports and obstruct US exports, and other foreign economic policies favoring over-production and degrading America’s manufacturing capacity”.
He said it was “common sense” to focus on these “indicators” of “non-reciprocal trading conditions”.
As an example he cited trade in shellfish with the EU. “The EU can sell us all the shellfish they want,” he says, “but the EU bans shellfish from 48 states. The result is a trade deficit in shellfish with the EU”
An update from Reuters on the Saudi foreign minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al-Saud’s visit to Washington today – the official visit is aimed at planning Donald Trump’s expected trip to the kingdom later this spring, a source close to the Saudi royal court told the news agency.
Prince Faisal would also discuss Gaza and the status of Yemen’s Houthis during meetings with US government officials, the source said.
The trip was scheduled before last week’s US tariffs announcement, the source added.
Reuters reports that Trump plans to visit Saudi Arabia as early as May to sign an investment agreement in what will be the first foreign trip of his second term, with stops also planned in Qatar and the United Arab Emirates.
Trump made Saudi Arabia and Israel the initial stops on his inaugural foreign trip during his first term in 2017.
In a meeting with Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House on Monday, Trump once again raised his highly controversial proposal for the US to take control of Gaza. The plan has been globally condemned, including by Saudi Arabia.
In Yemen, which borders Saudi Arabia to the south, the US has launched airstrikes against the Iran-aligned Houthis in an effort to force an end to the group’s attacks on shipping in the Red Sea. The airstrikes are the biggest US military operation in the Middle East since Trump took office in January.