Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick claimed President Donald Trump has the upper hand in tariffs against China because the U.S. buys more of its products than the Chinese buy American.
Lutnick’s analysis comes weeks after China filed a lawsuit against the U.S. with the World Trade Organization over its 10% tariff. Additionally, it issued its own 10% tariff on U.S. goods. According to Lutnick, the tariff battle comes down to the flow of fentanyl from China to the U.S.
“I think China’s set. They either end these subsidies and they end making these ingredients for fentanyl, or [Trump]’s going to put tariffs on there,” Lutnick said on Fox News’s Sunday Morning Futures. “And if they think they’re going to retaliate, remember, they have so much more that they sell to us than we sell to them. It’s not even close. This is not a battle we’re ever going to lose, and the president knows it. He does have the cards, and he’s going to protect America.”
For example, the largest online retailer, Amazon, found that its sellers had more than 70% of products come at least in part from China per a Jungle Scout survey. No other country came close despite the fact that sellers were able to cite more than one country in the survey.
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There were other tariffs against China already in place from Trump’s first term, which former President Joe Biden largely kept in place. The last tariff raised against China was in May 2024, when Biden announced tariffs against $18 billion worth of Chinese goods and effectively raised sale taxes in the U.S. by 3.6 billion.
These tariffs are part of a campaign promise Trump made. Initially, he teased tariffs as high as 20%, but instead reserved the higher tariffs for Canada and Mexico over border security disputes. Fentanyl has also been increasingly found at the U.S. southern and northern borders.
