Trump says he is considering imposing a 10% tariff on China starting February 1st

The President Donald Trump he said his team was discussing a 10% tariff on China and the duty could take effect from February 1.

“We’re talking about a 10% tariff in China because they’re sending fentanyl to Mexico and Canada,” the president told reporters at the White House on Tuesday afternoon.

“The date we are looking at is probably February 1,” he added.

Fentanyl, a synthetic opioid, is an addictive drug that causes tens of thousands of overdose deaths in the US each year. Reducing the illegal supply of the drug, the precursors of which are mostly produced in China and Mexico, has become the area. Washington and Beijing have agreed to cooperate.

Trump said Friday that he had spoken with the Chinese president Xi Jinping by phone about fentanyl and the trade. The Chinese party’s reading said Xi called for cooperation and that the economic relations between the two countries are mutually beneficial.

There are “no winners” in a trade warChinese Vice Premier Ding Xuexiang said Tuesday at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, according to an official translation. He called for efforts to support “economic globalization” and “better distribution” internationally.

The offshore Chinese yuan strengthened early, before weakening against the greenback to trade at 7.2796.

Mainstream Chinese state and financial media did not mention China’s proposed tariffs, instead highlighting Trump’s other headlines, such as a warning of European Union duties.

The US is China’s largest single-country trading partner. China’s imports from the US fell 0.1% in dollar terms last year, while exports rose 4.9%, according to official data obtained by Wind Information.

The data showed that China’s trade surplus with the US in 2024 was $361 billion, higher than the $316.9 billion reported for 2020, the last full year of Trump’s first term. The White House then raised tariffs on Chinese goods in an attempt to increase the country’s imports of US goods and address long-standing concerns of US companies in China. Beijing had it reciprocal with inherent obligations.

“If the U.S. imposed an additional 10 percent tariff on China and China responded in kind, U.S. GDP would be $55 billion less in the four years of the second Trump administration, and $128 billion less in China,” the US Peterson Institute. International Economics said a January 17 report.

He made similar comments a day earlier, highlighting this rates In Mexico and Canada it could be in February.

“We’re thinking about 25 percent (fees) from Mexico and Canada because they’re letting a large number of people” across the border, he said Monday.

While campaigning in 2024, Trump threatened to impose tariffs over 60% in Chinese goods. As recently as November, he called “10% Additional Fee“About China, according to a post on its social media platform Truth Social.

Correction: An earlier version of this story misstated which countries would be subject to a 25% rate. Those nations are Mexico and Canada.