Trump vows extra 10% tariffs for China from March 4

U.S. President Donald Trump on Thursday said his proposed 25% tariffs on Mexican and Canadian goods will take effect March 4 along with an extra 10% duty on Chinese imports because deadly drugs are still pouring into the U.S. from those countries.

According to Reuters, Trump told reporters in the Oval Office that the fresh tariffs on Chinese imports would stack on top of the 10% tariff that he levied on Feb. 4 over the fentanyl opioid crisis, resulting in a cumulative 20% tariff.

Trump first announced the new duties on Chinese imports in a post on his Truth Social site that he would impose the additional 10% tariff, effective March 4.

In the post, Trump said drugs, namely fentanyl, were still coming into the U.S. at “very high and unacceptable levels,” with a large percentage of them the deadly opioid fentanyl.

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Trump told reporters he decided to add the extra tariffs on China and stick to the Tuesday deadline for Canada and Mexico given what his administration sees as insufficient progress on curbing fentanyl flows into the country.

Asked if Mexico and Canada had made enough progress on curbing fentanyl shipments into the U.S., Trump said: “I don’t see that at all. No, not on drugs.”

“There are ongoing discussions with the Chinese, Mexico and Canada,” a White House official told Reuters. “We’ve gotten a good handle on the migration issue, but there are still concerns on the other issue of fentanyl deaths.

According to Reuters, Mexico will extradite to the United States drug lord Rafael Caro Quintero, who was convicted in 1985 of murdering a U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration agent but released in 2013 and returned to trafficking.

According to the Centers for Disease Control, 72,776 people died from synthetic opioids in 2023 in the U.S., chiefly from fentanyl.

Trump’s decision to ratchet up tariffs on Chinese goods mirrors his actions to systematically escalate tariffs during his first-term trade wars with Beijing until serious trade negotiations took place between the world’s two largest economies.

Thus far, Chinese President Xi Jinping has not engaged in negotiations over fentanyl, instead applying limited 10% retaliatory duties on U.S. energy and farm equipment.

But Beijing could push back harder if Trump’s new tariffs reach 20% on all U.S. imports from China, which totalled $439 billion last year, according to U.S. Census Bureau data. Many of those imports already faced duties of up to 25% from Trump’s first-term trade actions.

Piling on more tariffs could pose risks to both the Chinese and U.S. economies. China has been struggling with a property crisis and weak domestic demand, while U.S. inflation remains sticky and interest rates are elevated.