US-China Trade War Tariffs: An Up-to-Date Chart

Average US tariffs on Chinese exports now stand at 51.1 percent and cover 100 percent of all goods. China's average tariffs on US exports are at 32.6 percent and cover 100 percent of all goods. US tariffs have more than doubled since the second Trump administration began on January 20, 2025, rising by 30.4 percentage points. Chinese tariffs are over 50 percent higher than January 20, 2025, rising by 11.4 percentage points.

Average US tariffs on imports from China had increased to 126.5 percent in early May 2025, before later being reduced. The second Trump administration had reached those heights by increasing tariffs on imports from China through a number of different actions, not all of which were China-specific. (The two Trump administrations together have imposed special tariffs on China either under Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974 or under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, or IEEPA. Other tariff actions reflected here impacting China and other trading partners have been imposed under Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962 or Section 201 of the 1974 act).

In 2025, changes began with China-specific, 10 percentage point increases implemented on February 4 and March 4, covering all imports from China. The Trump administration then raised US tariffs on imports from all foreign sources of steel, aluminum, and derivative products on March 12 and on imports of automobiles on April 3 and on automobile parts on May 3. On April 5 (10 percentage points), April 9 (74 percentage points), and April 10 (41 percentage points), the United States increased tariffs on imports from China by another 125 percentage points, albeit with some sectoral carveouts, including one implemented on April 11.

However, after a meeting of US and Chinese officials in Geneva, both sides agreed to convert their cumulative bilateral tariff increases taking place in April to 10 percent (instead of 125 percent), effective as of May 14. As a result, the average US tariff on imports from China fell from 126.5 percent to 51.1 percent. (Again, the reduction in the average tariff was not simply 115 percentage points due to sectoral carveouts.)

With its retaliation in 2025, average Chinese tariffs on imports from the US peaked at 147.6 percent in mid-April before later being reduced. China has retaliated in three tranches in early 2025, increasing the scope of covered US exports initially from 58.3 percent to 63.0 percent, and then to 100 percent on April 10, when its retaliatory tariff of 84 percent affecting all imports from the United States went into effect. However, as a result of the Geneva meeting that led to the mutual reduction of tariffs effective on May 14, the average Chinese tariff on imports from the United States fell from 147.6 percent to 32.6 percent.

As a result of numerous Trump administration actions, the average US tariff on all goods imports from the rest of the world increased from 3.0 percent to 11.7 percent between January 20, 2025, and May 3. This includes the 10 percent tariff imposed on April 5 that did not simply increase the average tariff by 10 percentage points due to sectoral carveouts. (Notes: On March 4, 2025, the United States imposed new tariffs on certain imports from Canada and Mexico that ultimately did not "claim and qualify for" preferences under the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA). That tariff change is not reflected here. Furthermore, the US tariff on all goods imports from the rest of the world temporarily increased to 15.7 percent for one day—on April 9—before President Trump, on that same day, reversed some of his tariffs and paused their increase for 90 days.)

COMPARING US-CHINA TARIFFS SINCE 2018

US tariffs are more than 15 times higher than before the US-China tariff war began in 2018. All told, the 30.4-percentage point increase in the average US tariff on imports from China during the second Trump term is nearly twice as high as the 16.2 percentage point total average tariff increase on US imports from China during the entire first Trump administration of January 20, 2017, to January 20, 2021.

Under the Biden administration, which spanned January 20, 2021, to January 20, 2025, US-China tariffs remained fairly stable. The main exceptions were the increases in US tariffs on imports from China in September 2024 and January 2025, which raised the average US tariff on Chinese exports from 19.3 percent to 20.8 percent. (The product coverage was little changed; the US policy was primarily to increase tariff rates on already-covered products.)

During the first Trump administration, the February 14, 2020 implementation of the so-called US-China phase one agreement established new US tariffs on imports from China. US tariffs on Chinese exports in February 2020 averaged 19.3 percent, more than six times higher than in January 2018. Those tariffs covered 66.6 percent of US imports from China, or roughly $335 billion of trade (measured in terms of 2017 import levels).

Average Chinese tariffs on US exports starting in February 2020 were also at elevated levels of 21 percent, up from 8.0 percent prior to the trade war. China's retaliatory tariffs at the time covered 58.3 percent of imports from the United States, worth roughly $90 billion (measured in terms of 2017 import levels). On February 17, 2020, the Chinese government announced an exclusion process whereby Chinese companies could apply for a temporary exemption from the retaliatory tariffs. Nevertheless, China did not live up to the commitment of purchasing an additional $200 billion of US goods and services over 2020 and 2021, as established by the legal agreement signed on January 15, 2020.

Also noteworthy is that China's average tariffs on imports from the rest of the world declined from 8.0 percent in early 2018 to 6.5 percent by early 2022, where they mostly remain today. Again, the United States increased its average tariffs on imports from the rest of the world from 2.2 percent in January 2018 to 11.7 percent today.

Note: This chart was updated from the original data available in Chad P. Bown, 2021, The US-China Trade War and Phase One Agreement (also published in the Journal of Policy Modeling 43, no. 4: 805-843). The chart does not include data on antidumping or countervailing duties. For information on those, as well as the temporary product exclusions that each side granted to the tariffs in 2018–20, see the paper. The chart has also been updated to fix an error in the original paper regarding the size of China's tariff change in January 2021.