*China Imposes 125% Tariff On US Goods
The United Nations Assistant Secretary General and United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) Regional Director for Africa, Ahunna Eziakonwa, says the recent tariffs announced by the Unted States is a wakeup call for Africa to go beyond foreign aids.
Eziakonwa believes the technicalities of foreign aides has been a haggle for countries like Nigeria aiming to achieve the sustainable development goals, suggesting a focus on the non-oil sector as a way out.
This is even as the largest world largest economy, after US, China, remains defiant to the 145% tariff imposed on the country by embarking on a recipocatory gestures of 125 percent on US goods, promising to ignore further levies by President Donald Trump because it no longer makes economic sense for importers to buy from America.
Indeed, after a week of market mayhem as the world’s two largest economies took turns to put up trade barriers, Beijing dismissed Trump’s mounting brinkmanship as a “joke” and a “numbers game”.
However, the UN Assistant Secretary
made the comments during a visit to Channels Television’s Headquarters in Lagos where she spoke in an exclusive interview.
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Eziakonwa said, “What is happening now globally is a wake-up call for Africa because what is making the achievement of the SDG that much more difficult, yes there has been covid, yes there has been a lot of financial turbulence, but the fact that we have not been able to go beyond aide to really prioritise things like structured transformation that allows us to add value to our raw materials so that our Africa is not just exporting raw materials rather than creating industries that will create jobs, that is the one that needs to be addressed urgently.
“And the current tariff situation pushes us even harder because you can’t just be an oil economy anymore, the volatility is too much, you can crash at any moment when the prices go down. So, you have to be forced to look at the non-oil sector, that forces you as a country to now say, ‘where are the investments that we need to industrialise, to do a little bit more manufacturing?”
In early April 2025, the United States significantly increased tariffs on Chinese imports, escalating trade tensions between the two nations.
President Donald Trump announced the 125% tariff on Chinese goods, citing China’s “lack of respect” in trade relations. Additionally, a 20% “fentanyl tariff” was imposed on specific imports, bringing the total tariffs on certain Chinese products to 145%.
In retaliation, China raised tariffs on U.S. imports from 84% to 125%, effective April 12, 2025. This move mirrored the U.S.’s tariff rates and intensified the ongoing trade conflict.
The U.S. also imposed a 14% tariff on most imports from Nigeria, a move it said was part of a broader strategy to address trade imbalances. It has, however, temporarily paused the 14% tariff.
On April 9, President Donald Trump announced a 90-day suspension of the reciprocal tariffs affecting 60 countries, including Nigeria.
Jusrifting its action, China accused Trump of unleashing turbulence in the market with the sweeping tariffs that has hit the world, and said the United States “should bear full responsibility” for the chaos.
Trump has deployed sweeping tariffs, including painfully higher levies for dozens of major economies, as a stick to force manufacturers to base themselves in the United States and for countries to lower barriers to US goods.
But following market turmoil this week, he blinked first in his push to remodel the post-war system of global commerce and froze many tariffs for 90 days, although he raised them for China to a staggering total of 145 percent.
Beijing’s latest round of retaliation brings its levies to 125 percent, effective Saturday.
But the Chinese finance ministry said further action by the US will be ignored because “at the current tariff level, there is no possibility of market acceptance for US goods exported to China”.
“The United States’ imposition of round upon round of abnormally high tariffs on China has become a numbers game with no practical significance in economics,” Beijing’s commerce ministry said.
“If the US continues to play the tariff numbers game, China will ignore it,” a spokesperson said.
Beijing also said it would file a lawsuit with the World Trade Organization over the latest round of levies.
‘Beautiful Thing’
Trump has acknowledged “a transition cost and transition problems” arising from his tariff strategy, but he has dismissed global market turmoil.
“In the end it’s going to be a beautiful thing,” he said.
He described the European Union as “very smart” to refrain from retaliatory levies.
“(The EU) were ready to announce retaliation. And then they heard about what we did with respect to China’,” Trump said.
But the 27-nation bloc’s chief Ursula von der Leyen told the Financial Times that it remained armed with a “wide range of countermeasures” if negotiations with Trump hit the skids.
“An example is you could put a levy on the advertising revenues of digital services” applying across the bloc, she said.
French President Emmanuel Macron also urged the EU to keep preparing action to counter the tariffs, which are only paused but not scrapped.
“With the European Commission, we must show ourselves as strong: Europe must continue to work on all the necessary counter-measures,” he said on X.
At talks with Spain’s Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez on Friday, state media quoted Xi as saying that China and the EU should simply team up on the issue.
“China and Europe should fulfil their international responsibilities… and jointly resist unilateral bullying practices,” Xi said.
This, he stressed, would not only “safeguard their own legitimate rights and interests, but also… safeguard international fairness and justice.”
‘No Winners’
After new falls on Wall Street, Asian markets were under pressure again on Friday.
Tokyo sank more than four percent — a day after surging more than nine percent — while Sydney, Seoul, Singapore and others also sagged.
European markets also retreated on China’s latest salvo.
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Oil and the dollar slid on fears of a global slowdown while gold hit a new record above $3,200, as investors spooked by Trump’s erratic policies dumped normally rock-solid US Treasuries.
“The sugar high from Trump’s tariff pause is fading fast,” said Stephen Innes at SPI Asset Management.
“Bottom line: the world’s two largest economies are in a full-blown trade war — and there are no winners.”
‘Golden Age’
Critics of Trump’s policies say they are causing chaos for companies that rely on complex supply chains, alienating close allies and making goods more expensive for US consumers.
But Howard Lutnick, his commerce secretary, posted on social media Thursday that “the Golden Age is coming. We are committed to protecting our interests, engaging in global negotiations and exploding our economy.”
Trump has meanwhile warned that the tariffs could come back after the 90 days.
“If we can’t make the deal we want to make… then we’d go back to where we were,” he said.
Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney called Trump’s reversal a “welcome reprieve” and said Ottawa would begin negotiations with Washington on a new economic deal after elections on April 28.
Vietnam said it had agreed with the United States to start trade talks, while Pakistan is sending a delegation to Washington.
As China battles to find allies against Trump’s trade war, Xi will travel next week to Vietnam, Malaysia and Cambodia, where the tariff drama is expected to feature high on the agenda. AFP
