The U.S.-China Trade War of 2025 Has Begun. The Pain Will Be Real

Even more than every other country, Donald Trump has been talking about a trade war with China for many years.

“Trade wars are good, and easy to win,” Trump famously said in 2018, during his first term, about across-the-board tariffs.

Trump’s first term consisted of a great deal of “tit-for-tat” tariff fights with China in particular, which included China placing duties on coal, crude oil, and liquified natural gas, and the U.S. placing tariffs on imported solar panels.

A “Phase One” trade deal was agreed to in 2019 before Trump spent his final year in office warring with Beijing over the pandemic.

The U.S.-China Trade War Has Just Begun

But Trump’s return to office merely set the stage for a real, full-on trade war. And while speculation, from everyone from media commentators to Trump allies, has been that the president is bluffing to get a better deal in the short term, all of his actions in the last two weeks indicate that Trump is serious about a trade war with China.

84 Percent Tariff

The latest development is China’s announcement, overnight, is that China has imported 84 percent tariffs on U.S. goods, beginning Thursday, in retaliation for U.S. tariffs on Chinese goods, which are now over 100 percent. The 84 percent tariff is an increase from the 34 percent level.

The move, per CNBC, “threatens to crush trade between the world’s two largest economies.” Trump has promised to raise tariffs on China if they didn’t back down from their previous retaliation, but instead the situation has escalated.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told Fox News that it’s “unfortunate” that the Chinese don’t want to negotiate. At the same time, some other countries hit by Trump’s “Liberation Day” barrage of tariffs have expressed interest in coming to the table.

Even before that, Trump had announced tariffs individually on China, Canada, and Mexico, the U.S.’s three largest trading partners.

No More Movies?

The tariffs threaten to hurt one very crucial U.S. industry: Hollywood.

Per Bloomberg News, China is considering a ban or restriction on American movies, as part of its retaliation for the tariffs.

It is not official that this is happening, but rather, per Bloomberg, “two widely followed bloggers with links to the local authorities shared identical lists of measures” for retaliation, which included a ban or reduction on American movies in China. Other measures listed include banning the import of U.S. poultry, and suspending cooperation when it comes to fighting fentanyl.

As explored in Erich Schwarzel’s book Red Carpet: Hollywood, China, and the Global Battle for Cultural Supremacy,  American film companies have, in recent years, looked to the Chinese market as a crucial part of the foreign box office. Like many Western ventures that have attempted to do business in China, this has led to compromises and embarrassing moments, such as when actor John Cena, in 2021, referred to Taiwan as a country and was made to deliver a groveling apology, in Mandarin.

Contrary to the belief of many, Hollywood doesn’t do business in China because they’re secretly Communist or sympathetic to the Beijing regime- they do it because there are a billion people in China, and they sense the ability to make money there. But a ban on American movies in China would likely serve to hurt an industry that’s already troubled on various fronts.

This could be of interest to Trump, who has vowed to “make Hollywood great again.”

What Will Americans Notice?

The tariffs on China in particular are likely to lead to changes in day-to-day life for Americans, too, with regular purchases getting more expensive. Americans who like to order products from Shein, Temu, or other e-commerce concerns that offer cheap products that are made in China are likely to notice that those products aren’t as cheap anymore.

Trump had already dropped the “de minimis” exception, to go into effect on May 2, but has also now tripled the levy on what Axios described as “shipments under $800 that are sent from China to the U.S. outside of the international postal system.”

About the Author: Stephen Silver

Stephen Silver is an award-winning journalist, essayist and film critic, and contributor to the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, Broad Street Review and Splice Today. The co-founder of the Philadelphia Film Critics Circle, Stephen lives in suburban Philadelphia with his wife and two sons. For over a decade, Stephen has authored thousands of articles that focus on politics, technology, and the economy. Follow him on X (formerly Twitter) at @StephenSilver, and subscribe to his Substack newsletter