Welcome back to World Brief, where we’re looking at the U.S.-China tit-for-tat over tariffs, the uncertain future of the head of Israel’s Shin Bet agency, and South Korean forces firing warning shots at North Korean troops.
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Beijing Pushes Back
The world is bracing for U.S. President Donald Trump’s sweeping tariffs to go into effect on Wednesday. Nearly all of the United States’ trading partners will be affected, from uninhabited islands to Washington’s biggest adversaries, and global stock markets are preparing for the potentially catastrophic effects the duties are expected to inflict on global supply chains.
U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said perhaps as many as 70 countries have requested negotiations with Trump to discuss reducing or eliminating the tariffs—with varying degrees of success. Japan became the first major economy on Tuesday to secure priority talks with the Trump administration, and the U.S. president confirmed on Truth Social on Tuesday that a South Korean delegation is also heading to Washington for tariff negotiations.
U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer in an often contentious, nearly three-hour hearing before the Senate Finance Committee on Tuesday struggled to explain the why, how, or how long of the new tariffs. He maintained that duties are crucial for reshoring manufacturing but also for negotiating leverage that can be lifted to cut new trade deals.
However, not all countries are gaining purchase with Trump. During an in-person meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House on Monday, Netanyahu vowed to reduce his country’s trade surplus with the United States to zero. Even with that promise, though, Trump said Washington may keep its 17 percent tariff on Israel, saying, “Don’t forget, we help Israel a lot.”
Compared with all of the countries making overtures to the White House, China stands out as the only major country to counter Trump with its own retaliatory tariffs so far. And now, China is paying the price.
Last Friday, Beijing announced that it would match the 34 percent tariff rate that Trump imposed on China and hit the United States with a slew of other countermeasures. That defiance angered Trump. On Truth Social on Monday, he wrote that the United States would impose additional 50 percent tariffs on Beijing if it failed to repeal its 34 percent countertariffs by Tuesday.
The Chinese Commerce Ministry fired back, saying that “the U.S. threat to escalate tariffs is doubly erroneous” and that China would once again “take firm countermeasures to safeguard its legitimate rights and interests” in response. As of noon on Tuesday, with China not backing down, the White House announced that the new 50 percent tariff would go into effect on Wednesday.
That will bring the average tariff on Chinese imports to an astronomical 126 percent, with Trump himself having added 104 percent over four rounds of tariffs in just the past three months on top of tariffs that predated his second term.
Jack Zhang, a political scientist at the University of Kansas, told Foreign Policy that to some extent, the new 50 percent tariffs will be superfluous.
“I think the numbers only matter in so far as what is the threshold where demand destruction would occur, where people would no longer buy the thing because it’s prohibitively expensive,” Zhang said. “I suspect that 50, on top of 70, is going to have a marginal return in terms of pressure [on China]. I think 70 is already quite high.”
Nonetheless, Beijing is likely to mount a response to Trump’s latest escalation as a show of strength. China may impose countertariffs back on the United States, but Chinese leaders will be mindful of the impact that rising prices will have on China’s relatively weak domestic economy.
Zhang said China will likely continue to look for countermeasures that hurt the United States with as little collateral damage on the Chinese economy as possible—a limited option set. One such move would be to once again target U.S. companies that are highly reliant on Chinese supply chains by adding them to Beijing’s unreliable entities list so that Chinese companies cannot do business with them.
China also has a few other moves in reserve. It could devalue its currency, making Chinese goods cheaper and therefore offsetting Trump’s tariffs. Already on Monday, Beijing let the exchange rate slide to 7.2 yuan to the dollar, the weakest since September 2023. Beijing is also the second-largest holder of U.S. Treasury bonds, but experts believe that dumping the bonds would be self-defeating because it would deplete the value of other dollar assets that Beijing holds.
Recent statements from Chinese officials and Chinese state media commentary suggest that Beijing is prepared to hunker down for a protracted trade war despite the significant economic costs. “I think the tit-for-tat between the United States and China, at the very least, will continue for a while,” Zhang said.
Today’s Most Read
What We’re Following
Who will lead Shin Bet? Israel’s top court held hearings on Tuesday over Netanyahu’s attempt to dismiss Ronen Bar as chief of the Shin Bet intelligence agency. After hours of debate interrupted by protests, the court told Netanyahu and Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara to find a “creative solution” to the issue by the end of the Jewish holiday of Passover on April 20.
Netanyahu fired Bar last month over a “persistent loss of professional and personal trust” between himself and the Shin Bet chief, partly due to the agency’s admitted failure to prevent Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel. However, critics have questioned the timing of the dismissal, which came soon after Shin Bet began investigating alleged connections between Netanyahu’s close aides and the Qatari government.
Whereas Netanyahu’s allies accuse Bar of being disloyal to the coalition, anti-government protesters worry that his removal could set a dangerous precedent that undermines the independence of state institutions. On March 31, Netanyahu nominated retired Vice Adm. Eli Sharvit to replace Bar, but within 24 hours, the Israeli prime minister had withdrawn his pick, bowing to far-right pressure that Sharvit wasn’t loyal enough.
Do not enter. South Korea’s military said its forces fired warning shots on Tuesday after around 10 North Korean soldiers, some armed, violated the two countries’ military demarcation line. “Our military is closely monitoring the North Korean military’s activity and taking necessary measures according to the operational procedures,” South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said. North Korean troops did not fire back.
It is unclear why the crossing occurred. According to South Korean state news, the incident may have been accidental, as North Koreans were conducting reconnaissance activity in the area ahead of planned work nearby. However, the close confrontation comes as tensions between the two nations have escalated in recent months, with both sides sending propaganda over the heavily fortified border.
Judicial win for Trump. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in favor of the Trump administration on Monday in a 5-4 decision essentially allowing the White House to continue to use the 1798 Alien Enemies Act to deport Venezuelans to El Salvador for now.
Trump invoked the Alien Enemies Act last month to transfer hundreds of alleged Venezuelan members of the Tren de Aragua gang to Central America. The blowback was near instantaneous, with U.S. District Judge James Boasberg demanding (unsuccessfully) that the planes turn around and news later emerging that the administration had wrongfully deported a Maryland resident.
The Supreme Court did not address the underlying question of the legality of the use of the Alien Enemies Act; rather, it ruled that the five Venezuelan immigrants who had challenged the law’s use did so in the wrong court, adding that their hearings must occur in Texas, where they were detained, and not in Washington. This could allow those targeted for deportation to refile their cases in other jurisdictions. The Supreme Court also said the federal government must give Venezuelans accused of being members of violent gangs “reasonable time” for due process.
In addition, Chief Justice John Roberts agreed on behalf of the Supreme Court to pause a federal judge’s order that had set a deadline of midnight on Monday for the White House to return the Maryland man to the United States, saying the top court needed more time to weigh in on the Trump administration’s request to have the judge’s order blocked.
Odds and Ends
Prince Laurent of Belgium lives in a rent-free home, received nearly $425,000 last year as part of his annual royal allowance, and is, notably, a prince. But unlike his fellow Belgian citizens, he does not receive social security, prompting him to sue the government. “This is not about financial means but principle,” Laurent told Belgian broadcaster RTBF. However, a Brussels court ruled on Monday that Laurent cannot claim social security benefits on top of his royal earnings. Cue the world’s smallest violin.
The post China Remains Defiant in Face of New Trump Tariffs appeared first on Foreign Policy.
