China Retaliates With 34% Tariffs, as a Lawsuit Challenges Trump's Trade Wars

WSJ Opinion: Potomac Watch

The Wall Street Journal

Society & Culture, News

4 • 2.7K Ratings

🗓️ 4 April 2025

⏱️ 23 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Donald Trump's big tariffs have now drawn a big response from Beijing, which says it will add 34% duties to U.S. goods, roiling the stock market again on Friday. But a new lawsuit argues that the president's purported "emergency" tariffs aren't authorized by law, while a handful of Senate Republicans, including Rand Paul, vote to countermand the U.S. trade war against Canada. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Ready to launch your business? Get started with the commerce platform made for entrepreneurs. Shopify
0:05.0	is specially designed to help you start, run and grow your business with easy customizable themes
0:10.8	that let you build your brand, marketing tools that get your products out there. Integrated shipping
0:15.5	solutions that actually save you time, from startups to scaleups, online, in person, and on the go. Shopify is made for
0:22.8	entrepreneurs like you. Sign up for your $1 a month trial at Shopify.com slash setup.
0:32.6	From the opinion pages of the Wall Street Journal, this is Potomac Watch.
0:41.3	Liberation Day 3 to use Donald Trump's name for his latest trade wars, begins with a Chinese tariff retaliation, another stock
0:47.4	market dive, and a lawsuit challenging one of the president's trade emergencies as exceeding
0:52.8	his legal powers.
0:57.3	Welcome, I'm Kyle Peterson with the Wall Street Journal.
1:03.6	We're joined today by my colleagues on the editorial page, columnists Alicia Finley, and Mary Anastasia O'Grady.
1:05.6	A day after Trump imposed what he called reciprocal tariffs on America's trading partners.
1:11.6	The pushback has now officially begun.
1:14.3	On Friday, China said it would respond, hitting back with a 34% tariff on U.S. imports,
1:20.8	as well as a range of non-tariff measures, restrictions on exports of rare earth metals and so forth. The S&P 500 meantime is down
1:30.3	about 5%. Let's listen to Secretary of State Marco Rubio speaking at NATO headquarters today
1:36.9	and suggesting that this is just a little adjustment. The markets are reacting to a dramatic
1:43.1	change in the global order in terms of trade.
1:46.0	And so what happens is pretty straightforward.
1:48.0	If you're a company and you make a bunch of your products in China and all of a sudden,
1:52.0	shareholders or people that play the stock market realize that it's going to cost a lot more to produce in China,
1:58.0	your stock is going to go down.
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from The Wall Street Journal, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of The Wall Street Journal and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.