President Donald Trump on Friday threatened to slap a “massive increase of Tariffs” on Chinese products imported into the United States to “financially counter” new export controls that China imposed on rare earths from that country.
Trump also threatened in a social media post to cancel his upcoming meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping because of the dispute.
Stock markets dropped after Trump’s bellicose Truth Social post about China, in which he said that “there is no way that” country “should be allowed to hold the World ‘captive'” with its rare earth policy.
China controls about 70% of the global supply of rare earths minerals, which are critical for high-tech industries, including automobiles, defense and semiconductors.
“One of the Policies that we are calculating at this moment is a massive increase of Tariffs on Chinese products coming into the United States of America,” Trump wrote. “There are many other countermeasures that are, likewise, under serious consideration. Thank you for your attention to this matter!”
China’s Ministry of Commerce on Thursday said that foreign entities must now obtain a license to export products that contain more than 0.1% of rare earth sourced from that country, or that are manufactured using Chinese extraction, refining, magnet-making or recycling technology.
The new rules in rare earths exports are set to take effect on Dec. 1.
U.S. and Chinese officials have been working to arrange a summit between U.S. President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping in the coming months, which will likely take place in Beijing, experts said.
Dilara Irem Sancar | Anadolu | Getty Images
“Some very strange things are happening in China!” Trump wrote in his Truth Social post.
“They are becoming very hostile, and sending letters to Countries throughout the World, that they want to impose Export Controls on each and every element of production having to do with Rare Earths, and virtually anything else they can think of, even if it’s not manufactured in China,” Trump wrote.
The president said he had not spoken to Xi about the issue “because there was no reason to do so.”
“This was a real surprise, not only to me, but to all the Leaders of the Free World. I was to meet President Xi in two weeks, at APEC, in South Korea, but now there seems to be no reason to do so,” Trump wrote, referring to the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit.
Trump claimed that the United States has been contacted by other countries that are “extremely angry at this great Trade hostility, which came out of nowhere.”
“Our relationship with China over the past six months has been a very good one, thereby making this move on Trade an even more surprising one,” he wrote.
— CNBC’s Anniek Bao contributed to this story.
