Will the U.S. really plan to impose a 100% or even higher tariff on Chinese goods? In the week of October 4 to 10, 2025, Trump intensively put pressure on the EU and G7 countries to impose tariffs of 50% to 100% on China.As early as April this year, the "reciprocal tariff" policy launched by its government was officially implemented, and the comprehensive tax rate on some China goods has reached 145%-this tax rate is composed of 20%"fentanyl tax" and 125%."Pedestrian tariffs" are superimposed, and the White House officially confirmed the entry into force on April 10. This is no longer a verbal threat, but a trade reality that is fermenting in the global industrial chain.
The "reciprocal tariff" policy, which will take effect in April 2025, clearly lists China as the primary target.According to the implementation rules issued by the U.S. Customs and Border Protection, this policy first imposes basic tariffs on 60 economies with large trade deficits, then upgrades the tax rates twice, and finally Form a 145% comprehensive tax item for China goods, covering clothing, consumer electronics, furniture and other livelihood and industrial categories, and accurately corresponding to customs code (HTS) segmented commodities.
A friend who is engaged in cross-border e-commerce in Shenzhen revealed that the original cost of exporting an electric massage chair he represented to the United States was about US$320. Based on the 145% tariff, an additional US$464 was required. The terminal selling price was forced to rise to US$780, and the order volume was cut in half. This is not an exception-Amazon's platform has canceled orders for motorcycles, air conditioners and other goods from many China suppliers due to tariff pressure without any prior warning.
In the past week, he has repeatedly publicly linked Chinese imports of Russian oil to the “financing war” and called for “collective action” from the G7 and NATO member states. According to industry preliminary statistics, China imports about 1.1 billion tons of crude oil from Russia in the first half of 2025, accounting for 38% of the total Russian exports – this is true, but the US has deliberately ignored that these purchases are settled in yuan and do not violate the UN sanctions framework.
From another perspective, Trump’s real goal may be more than a trade deficit.In 2024, the U.S. merchandise trade deficit with China will be US $361 billion (Chinese customs data). Although it still ranks first among other countries, it only accounts for 39% of the U.S. total annual trade deficit of US $918.4 billion. More importantly, He tried to use the Russian-Ukrainian theme to secure economic issues and turn tariffs into leverage to propel geopolitical interests.
Compared to the first round of the trade war in 2018, when the highest tariff rate was only 25%, and now the 145% tax rate has reached the historic peak of U.S. tariffs on China since 1934, the strategy clearly shifted from “correcting imbalances” to “systematic disconnection”.More cautiously, the move is pushing the European side – if the G7 really follows the high tariffs on China, the global supply chain will face a second crack.
However, judging from the actual reaction, the EU's attitude is intriguing: Germany’s economy minister said on October 8 that it will not blindly follow U.S. tariffs on China., which is consistent with Germany's previous position of market opening-it has publicly opposed protective tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles, believing that trade protectionism will drag down the transformation of the European automobile industry and harm the interests of consumers; France also emphasized "the need to assess its own industrial interests." Obviously, its allies are unwilling to pay for the geopolitical calculations of the United States.
For China's export companies, the pressure has already had a substantial impact. A person in charge of a garment factory in Zhejiang admitted that 70% of orders were originally sold to the United States, but now they are forced to switch to the Middle East and Latin America, but the profit margin in the new market has dropped by nearly 40%. This market shift is not an isolated case: In 2018, China accounted for 19.2 percent of total exports to the US, and by 2024 it had dropped to 14.7 percent, and ASEAN has replaced the United States as China’s largest trading partner.
But American consumers are under the same pressure as. According to a comprehensive estimate by the Peterson Institute for International Economics and the Yale University Budget Laboratory, after 145% of tariffs fully covered related categories, U.S. household annual spending will increase by about $2,300, and the share of low-income household burden is much higher than other groups. The reality is a sharp contrast to Trump’s claim that “tariffs are borne by foreigners”: New York Federal Reserve studies have long confirmed, More than 90 percent of the cost of tariffs in the trade war in 2018 was digested by U.S. importers and consumers, and this percentage could be close to 100 percent in 2025, with higher tariffs.
Procter & Gamble has made it clear that it will raise the price of daily necessities such as washing powder and diapers by 2.5% from August, directly passing on the tariff cost.Analogy of life: It's like when you go to the supermarket to buy food, and the boss says "the price of the supplier has increased". As a result, when you pay the bill, you find that the price has doubled, but the supplier has actually only increased by 10%, and the difference in the middle has all become tariff costs.
The deeper impact is hidden in economics. The Warton Business School model from the University of Pennsylvania shows, In the long run, high tariffs may cause U.S. GDP to drop by 6% and wages by 5%, and a middle-income family's lifetime income loss may reach US$22,000.For the manufacturing industry, industries that rely on Chinese intermediate products, such as machinery and electronics, are the hardest hit- Higher customs tariffs will offset the increase in value of production caused by protection policies and even lead to a net decline in manufacturing jobs.The 2018 trade war proved this logic: the number of jobs created in industries protected by tariffs at the time was far less than the number of jobs lost due to retaliatory tariffs and rising costs.
Trump uses the Russia-Ukraine issue to push the world to impose high tariffs on China. Is it strategic pressure or diverting domestic conflicts? Judging from the domestic fiscal difficulties of the United States, the latter is even more suspicious: the U.S. fiscal deficit in fiscal year 2024 will reach US$1.83 trillion, and the total amount of national debt will exceed US$36 trillion. In 2025, interest expenses alone will be close to US$1 trillion, accounting for fiscal revenue. 20%. In the case of military expenditure, social security and other expenditure can not be cut, through tariffs to domestic citizens and enterprises to "increase taxes", has become a good idea to alleviate the fiscal pressure. A trade war in 2018 was equivalent to imposing $80 billion in taxes on the U.S. people, while the scale of the high tariffs in 2025 could be far greater.
If the average U.S. household spends more than $2,300 a year, companies are under the pressure of rising costs and supply chain turmoil, only to force China to make concessions on the U.S. issue, this generation is worth it? the answer may have been written in the market reaction: in the news announcement of a week, the U.S. retail stock index fell 2.1%, investors are voting with their feet, fleeing the tariff storm industry.