Tariffs live: Trump insists policy ‘doing really well’ despite China hiking levies on American goods to 125%

President Xi Jinping told Spain’s prime minister that China and the EU must join together in defending globalisation and opposing “unilateral acts of bullying”, in a jab at US president Donald Trump.

Mr Xi, in his first public comments on the issue since Mr Trump launched his tariff offensive last week, said there could be “no winners” in any trade war, and he said the EU had a key role to play in ensuring global economic stability.

China has always regarded the EU as an important pole in a multipolar world, and is one of the major countries firmly supporting the EU’s unity and growth,” Mr Xi told the Spanish prime minister.

“China and the EU should fulfill their international responsibilities, jointly safeguard the trend of economic globalisation and the international trade environment, and jointly oppose unilateral acts of bullying,” Xi added.

US president Donald Trump has insisted that his policy was “doing really well” despite China hiking levies on American goods to 125 per cent in a tit-for-tat response amid the ongoing trade war between the two biggest economies.

China’s tariff hike, hitting back against Trump’s decision to hike duties on Chinese goods to 145 per cent, will come into effect today.

“When people understand what we’re doing, I think the dollar will go way up,” he told reporters, downplaying the market turbulence.”The bond market’s going good. It had a little moment but I solved that problem very quickly.”

Beijing has vowed to “fight to the end” in an escalating trade war with the US.

Announcing it would lift tariffs on US goods to 125 per cent, a Chinese Finance Minister said the Trump administration’s repeated increase to tariffs “will become a joke in the history of the world economy”.

“However, if the US insists on continuing to substantially infringe on China’s interests, China will resolutely counter and fight to the end,” the spokesperson added.

The US has lifted tariffs on Chinese goods to 145 per cent, and earlier China’s foreign ministry spokesperson said that Beijing would ignore any further increases.

“Given that US exports to China are already commercially unviable at current tariff levels, any further US tariff hikes on Chinese goods will simply be ignored,” Lin Jian said.