China retaliates & raises tariffs to 125% on American goods as trade war gathers momentum

China has announced it will raise its tariffs on US goods to 125% from tomorrow, after Trump increased Washington’s levies on China to 145%. Beijing has said it “will not respond” to additional US tariffs.

Washington’s tariffs are a “numbers game” that will “become a joke,” a Beijing commerce ministry spokesperson later said, reports BBC.

Despite escalating the US’s tariffs on China, Trump has said he is still hopeful of striking a deal with Beijing that will be beneficial for both countries.

However, China’s President Xi Jinping has called on the European Union to join China in opposing “bullying” from the US, saying “there are no winners in a tariff war.”

Shortly after China’s latest announcement on increasing tariffs for US goods, Europe’s three main indexes entered the red – many Asian markets are also down.

While all that has been going on, EU finance ministers have been meeting in Warsaw, Poland, to discuss how to respond to US tariffs if negotiations fail

This comes ahead of European Trade Commissioner Maros Sefcovic’s visit to Washington over the weekend, where he intends “to try and sign deals”, according to a spokesperson.

Meanwhile, the US dollar falls to a three-year low as Deutsche Bank says “the damage has been done.”