Trump announces potential tariffs on Chinese imports as early as next week

US President Donald Trump on Tuesday announced that the first phase of US tariffs on Chinese imports could be implemented as soon as next week, as reported by Radio Free Asia.

According to Radio Free Asia, Trump had initially threatened to impose a 10 per cent tariff on Chinese imports on his first day in office, following his campaign pledge the previous year that tariffs on Chinese goods could potentially exceed 60 per cent.

The tariffs were not included in the series of executive orders the new president signed on his first day back in the White House on Monday. However, on Tuesday, Trump indicated that February 1 could mark the day the tariffs are imposed, emphasising that they are necessary to strengthen domestic industry, the Radio Free Asia reported.

“We’re talking about a tariff of 10 per cent on China based on the fact that they’re sending fentanyl to Mexico and Canada,” Trump said, following the announcement of an USD 500 billion AI infrastructure investment by Oracle, OpenAI, and SoftBank.

According to Radio Free Asia, Trump mentioned that he had discussed the issue with Chinese President Xi Jinping during a phone call on Friday, prior to his return to power. “I told him, we don’t want that crap in our country,” Trump recalled.

Efforts to curb the flow of fentanyl precursors from China were a key focus of former US President Joe Biden’s diplomatic efforts with Beijing. One of the main outcomes of the 2023 summit between Biden and Xi in San Francisco was Xi’s pledge to crack down on precursor exports.

In the months following that meeting, Biden administration officials largely acknowledged that China had made progress on its commitments. However, Trump argued that insufficient action had been taken, RFA reported.

Fentanyl is an extremely potent synthetic opioid that US authorities hold responsible for the deaths of tens of thousands of Americans annually. The drug’s precursors are manufactured in China and then converted into fentanyl by Mexican transnational drug trafficking organisations, who smuggle it into the United States.