Trump tariffs live updates: Trump threatens additional tariffs on China, markets remain jittery

President Trump threatened additional tariffs on China and markets bounced around amid the new US tariff policy that is set to fully roll out on Wednesday.

Trump posted that “if China does not withdraw its 34% increase above their already long term trading abuses by tomorrow, April 8th, 2025, the United States will impose ADDITIONAL Tariffs on China of 50%, effective April 9th. Additionally, all talks with China concerning their requested meetings with us will be terminated! Negotiations with other countries, which have also requested meetings, will begin taking place immediately.”

In terms of negotiations with other countries, it’s unclear how any deal would conflict with US assertions that Trump’s tariff policy is creating “a new Made in America revolution.”

“You can’t both revive the [domestic] manufacturing base and negotiate with a foreign country,” Jeanne Sheehan Zaino, an expert at the nonpartisan Center for the Study of the Presidency & Congress, told Bloomberg. “And so that is the conundrum that Donald Trump has himself in: What are the goals of this tariff policy?”

Trump and his top advisers retrenched over the weekend, with the president suggesting that equity markets may need to “take medicine” and posting that the new tariffs are “already in effect, and a beautiful thing to behold.”

Trump also reiterated that the impetus behind the tariff policy is trade deficits: “I spoke to a lot of leaders … from all over the world. … I said ‘we’re not going to have deficits with your country’ … to me a deficit is a loss. We’re going to have surpluses or, at worst, we’re going to be breaking even.”

On April 2, Trump announced a blanket 10% tariff on all goods coming into the US. He also added new duties on goods from 185 countries, which the president described as the “worst offenders” in terms of perceived unfairness on trade, slated to kick in on April 9.