On Thursday (3), China said that it “firmly opposes” sweeping new US tariffs on its exports, promising “countermeasures” to protect its rights and interests. US President Donald Trump has unleashed a global trade war after imposing tariffs on imports and harsh extra tariffs on his main trading partners.
The Republican politician announced 34% tariffs on imports from China, one of the US’s biggest trading partners. China’s Ministry of Commerce called on Washington to “immediately cancel” the new measures, which “endanger global economic development.” China had already responded to the US tariffs with duties of up to 15% on a range of US agricultural products, including soybeans, pork, and chicken.
A Chinese diplomatic spokesman criticized the US for “protectionism and harassment”, calling for a solution to economic and trade differences “through fair, respectful and reciprocal consultations”. In a statement, Beijing’s Ministry of Commerce said these tariffs “do not comply with international trade rules and seriously harm the legitimate rights and interests of the relevant parties”. It accused the United States of adopting a “typical unilateral bullying practice.”
The recent tariffs come on top of a 20% levy imposed last month. At a weekly meeting on Thursday, the Ministry of Commerce also criticized Washington’s “protectionism and intimidation,” but also said that the two sides were “maintaining communication” on the causes of disagreement on trade and economic issues. In practice, tariffs on Chinese imports will now be 54%.
Bans on US companies
In the first document published by the Chinese ministry, China has included ten US companies on the Unreliable Entities List, which means that the companies will not be able to trade with China or invest in the country.
According to the Chinese government, the system is used to guarantee “international economic and trade rules and the multilateral trading system, oppose unilateralism and trade protectionism, and safeguard China’s national security, social public interests and the legitimate rights and interests of enterprises.”
In a separate announcement, Illumina Inc. corporation was also included in the system, but with the specific measure of banning the export of genetic sequencers (machines that identify the sequence of genetic information) to China. The third measure placed another 15 US companies on the Export Control List.
List of banned companies
The first ten companies sell weapons or provide surveillance and data analysis services to Taiwan. According to the Chinese Ministry of Commerce, the decision is based on various laws, such as the National Security Law and the Anti-Foreign Sanctions Law. The Ministry added that Trump’s tariffs “seriously harm China’s national sovereignty, security and development interests.”
The group of banned companies includes some from the arms or aerospace sector (Cubic Corporation, TCOM, L.P, Teledyne Brown Engineering, Inc., S3 AeroDefense and ACT1 Federal); aviation (Stick Rudder Enterprises LLC); shipbuilding and defense (Huntington Ingalls Industries Inc); data analysis (Exovera and TextOre), and engineering (Planate Management Group).
Some of these companies have already been the subject of so-called countermeasures since September 2024. They were implemented in response to the US State Department’s announcement of approval to sell military weapons to Taiwan for US$228 million, which was confirmed in October last year for a much higher amount – US$2 billion.
On the other hand, according to China’s Ministry of Commerce, Illumina “violated normal market trading principles, disrupted normal transactions with Chinese companies, adopted discriminatory measures against Chinese companies and seriously harmed the legitimate rights and interests of Chinese companies.”
The other 15 companies mentioned have ties (to a greater or lesser degree) to the US Military Industrial Complex. The measures implemented by China on Tuesday banned the country’s companies from exporting so-called dual-use goods – which can be used for both peaceful and military purposes – to the banned US companies. See the list below:
- Leidos
- Gibbs & Cox, Inc.
- IP Video Market Info, Inc.
- Sourcemap, Inc.
- Skydio, Inc.
- Rapid Flight LLC
- Red Six Solutions
- Shield AI, Inc.
- HavocAI
- Neros Technologies
- Group W
- Aerkomm Inc.
- General Atomics Aeronautical Systems, Inc.
- General Dynamics Land Systems
- AeroVironment
*Source: AFP
