Trump Announces New 100% Tariff on China Over Rare Earth Minerals Restrictions

“Donald Trump’s trade policy disaster continues to batter American families and American farmers with higher prices and lost jobs,” said Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer

US President Donald Trump on Friday said he will impose an additional 100% tariff on imports from China starting next month after Beijing announced tightened controls of rare earth exports.

“It has just been learned that China has taken an extraordinarily aggressive position on Trade in sending an extremely hostile letter to the World, stating that they were going to, effective November 1, 2025, impose large scale Export Controls on virtually every product they make, and some not even made by them,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social network. “This affects ALL Countries, without exception, and was obviously a plan devised by them years ago. It is absolutely unheard of in International Trade, and a moral disgrace in dealing with other Nations.”

“Based on the fact that China has taken this unprecedented position, and speaking only for the USA, and not other Nations who were similarly threatened, starting November 1, 2025 (or sooner, depending on any further actions or changes taken by China), the United States of America will impose a Tariff of 100% on China, over and above any Tariff that they are currently paying. Also on November 1, we will impose Export Controls on any and all critical software.”

Current tariffs on Chinese imports are generally set at 30%. Trump hit the US’ second-biggest source of imported goods with what he called “reciprocal” levies earlier this year after initially moving to impose tariffs as high as 145% on Beijing.

Now as then, critics noted that tariffs are essentially a tax on US consumers, as companies pass along the higher costs of doing business to their customers.

“Donald Trump’s trade policy disaster continues to batter American families and American farmers with higher prices and lost jobs,“ Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) said Friday. ”For Americans the economic hits just keep on coming. Trump is making Americans pay more for healthcare, for groceries, for energy—they can’t afford to take much more of Donald Trump’s failed economic experiment.”

News of the potential new tariffs sent US shares and cryptocurrency prices plummeting during late trading Friday, with $1.65 trillion—more than the gross domestic product of countries including Turkey, Mexico, and Saudi Arabia—in value erased from the stock market.

Trump’s post followed the Chinese government’s Thursday announcement that it will require foreign companies to obtain special permission to export rare earth minerals, while also restricting their use to nonmilitary purposes.

The president’s global trade war—and specifically his tariffs on China—have already caused considerable harm to Americans, especially farmers. Beijing’s retaliatory measures included stopping all purchases of US soybeans, the nation’s number one export crop.

“Thanks to Trump’s tariffs on China, US soybean farmers have lost their biggest customer and are grappling with higher prices for farming equipment,” former US Labor Secretary Robert Reich noted on social media earlier this week. “Now, Trump has said he will bail out farmers—supposedly with the tariff revenue that caused the crisis to begin with. Hello?”