US PRESIDENT Donald Trump said he would impose an additional 100 per cent tariff on China and export controls on “any and all critical software” beginning Nov 1, hours after threatening to cancel an upcoming meeting with the country’s leader, Xi Jinping.

“It has just been learned that China has taken an extraordinarily aggressive position on Trade in sending an extremely hostile letter to the World, stating that they were going to, effective Nov 1, 2025, impose large scale Export Controls on virtually every product they make, and some not even made by them,” Trump said in a social media post. 

The declaration came after Trump earlier on Friday (Oct 10) threatened trade actions against China, citing “hostile” export controls Beijing placed on rare-earth minerals. Trump also said there seemed to be “no reason” to follow through with a planned meeting with Xi on the sidelines of the Apec summit in South Korea later this month, though the timing of the newly announced tariffs still leaves room for that meeting to occur before they go into effect. 

Trump’s planned tariffs would raise import taxes on Chinese goods to 130 per cent. That would be just below the 145 per cent level imposed earlier this year, before both countries ratcheted down the levies in a truce to advance trade talks. 

Markets recoiled at the president’s original comments, which portended fresh trade tensions between the world’s two largest economies. The S&P 500 fell more than 1.5 per cent. The Nasdaq 100 fell as much as 2.4 per cent, the most since Apr 30. Chicago soybean futures fell as much as 1.9 per cent to US$10.0275 a bushel, hitting session lows after the post. The intraday decline is the biggest since Jul 7.

Ahead of the planned meeting, both the US and China moved to potentially curb flows of technology and materials between the countries – which had been seen as ways to gain an edge in the talks.