Name: US hitting China with 145% tariffs, White House confirms | BBC News
Uploaded: 2025-04-12T09:44:39.000Z
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Just in the last few moments, the BBC has confirmed that U.S. tariffs against China add up to 145%.

That is on top of, that is including the existing 20% tariffs that were already imposed on the country at the beginning of the year.

And also, after yesterday's huge rally on Wall Street, today we are seeing a very different picture.

Share prices falling on the U.S. stock exchange as uncertainty continues over the U.S. trade policy.

The Dow is down 3.4%, the S&P 500 down 4.2%, and the Nasdaq is down 5%.

Trading, however, in Europe and Asia, though, saw prices surge.

So let's talk to our correspondents in Washington and in New York.

And, just talk us through what we're learning, because initially we thought that China was on a 125% tariff, already eye-watering, but we've had some kind of clarity now.

Yes, I mean, this 145% is the clarification from the White House today.

But there was a bit of a confusion earlier, because, yes, as you say, Mr. Trump had tweeted earlier, sorry, put it on his truth social earlier, that the tariff rate on China will be 125%.

So now the White House has clarified that, yes, there is the existing 20% that Mr. Trump has slapped on China due to what he accuses China of is letting fentanyl flow to the U.S.

But I want to point out that this is kind of a telling of how much confusion and still uncertainty around this tariff announcement.

Even in the Congress here, we saw earlier the Republicans and the Democrat senators talk about this tariff issue.

And there seems to be an amazing amount of confusion.

Let me just read you one quote from Republican Senator Ron Johnson.

And he was saying, I still don't know what his total strategy is, referring to Mr. Trump.

And Democratic Senator Elisa Slotkin, she was saying, I'm just trying to understand what the hell is happening.

And it seems that there's even confusion amongst the White House, amongst the staff of Mr. Trump.

Yesterday, we saw Mr. Jameson Greer, who is Mr. Trump's top trade official.

He was testifying in front of the Congress.

And as he was testifying for hours, he's appeared to be unaware of this 90-day pause that Mr. Trump has announced.

And that led him to being berated by one of the Democratic politicians saying that, hey, your boss seems to know something that you don't.

So all this uncertainty, it looms over what the market is going to do for the next 90 days.

And on that, let's cross over to Erin Delmore and have a look at what the markets are doing.

Because Erin, yesterday, we saw that absolutely huge rally, that surge upwards.

Today, however, the markets are not looking so good.

And that's a reaction to the sizable tariffs that remain in place on US imports from China, as you said, stands at 145%. 20% the administration has said is in response to China's handling of the fentanyl crisis, and an additional 125% put into effect yesterday.

And we're seeing it play out on Wall Street.

The Dow is down nearly 1,700 points as we speak.

But what we need to do, as much as we can talk about the historic rally yesterday on Wall Street, is actually take the numbers back to April 2nd, which is when President Trump announced his tariffs.

If we go back to that mark, the S&P is down around 6%.

So as much as we can talk about this roller coaster ride that we've had in the last weeks, and yes, the S&P landed above 9% yesterday.

The Dow, a one day high going back to as far as March 2020.

Yes, all banner numbers, but put it into context with what we've seen the last week and the S&P, that broad 500 company index, is broadly down.

Ellen Delmore there, our North America business correspondent.

Also, our thanks to Jake Kwon joining us from Washington on the very latest there.

And just a line coming from the former US Treasury Secretary, Janet Yellen, who is saying that the threat, the instability from the falling of the markets and the falling prices for the US Treasury debt, that is, of course, the bonds, that was the reason, she reckons, why Donald Trump then created this pause.

Of course, we're hearing from the White House that he, this was always part of the plan.

So a little bit of confusion, and not least with the tariffs on China.

I'm pleased to say that our economic correspondent, Andy Verity, joins us now.

And Andy, we're hearing about that just confusion there.

We have this sudden euphoria overnight, and then you're hit by this sobering realisation in the hangover of the next day that you still have, even if you don't have quite the multilateral trade war that Trump was talking about a few days ago, a bilateral trade war on a scale we haven't seen in decades with the US and China.

And all kinds of uncertainties facing the auto industry, facing the likes of Canada and Mexico, who still face 25% tariffs.

And anyway, the trade war has just been postponed for 90 days.

And that's really important just to keep stressing there.

We saw that Wall Street has opened a little bit lower.

Europe, though, they were looking a little bit more comfortable today.

Well, I mean, I think you have to look at the timings of the various announcements.

The markets in Europe have been playing catch up for most of the day, but with some trepidation, because even as they were looking at the S&P 500 that covers the shares of the top 500 companies listed in New York going up by 9% yesterday, they weren't actually edging up by as much because they knew that something bad would come today.

The performance on the American markets today, and that's exactly what's happened.

And I think part of it is that the fundamentals of the financial system are still looking shaky.

That sell-off in US Treasuries that we saw yesterday and the day before, although it's recovered some of the ground, it hasn't got back to where it was before Trump announced these major tariffs over the past week or so.

And that has undermined confidence in a bedrock of the global financial system, namely the stability of US Treasuries and US Treasury bonds, which until now were the safe haven in a time of crisis.

And that is certainly what the former US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen was saying.

She was speaking to a US broadcaster, and she said it was that, the movement in the bonds that spooked, or to use Donald Trump's word, yippied, or however he says it, him in order to create this pause.

Yeah, he said the markets were getting a little bit yippy.

We don't really know what that means, but it certainly doesn't seem to overstate how things were.

Because in 2008, the financial crisis, you didn't have people selling bonds.

They were a place for a flight to safety.

You only had it really in the last few decades in the COVID crisis when there was the dash for cash.

People were worried governments couldn't afford all the money they'd have to spend on support measures during the lockdowns, and therefore they sold even US Treasury bonds.

That will have prompted some very heated discussions.

We can't know what they were, but I think Janet Yellen is speculating that he would have been told in no uncertain terms, you're undermining our status not only as a foundation stone of the global financial system, but also as the place where people look to for stability.

And if you want to give up that status, that could also undermine the dollar.

And again, we're seeing today that people have been selling the dollar.

That's something that's going to worry President Trump at a time when, in theory, his tariffs, if what he says is true, are going to be good for the American economy.

So let's just pick up on our understanding now that the White House has clarified the tariffs on China as being at 145 per cent.

We can speak to Zhongyuan Zhou Liu, who's the Maurice R.

Greenberg Senior Fellow for China Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations.

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US hitting China with 145% tariffs, White House confirms | BBC News

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