US President Donald Trump said yesterday that imports from countries supplying Iran with military weapons will face immediate 50 per cent tariffs with no exemptions, threatening the new duties just hours after agreeing to a two-week ceasefire with Tehran.
After more than five weeks of air strikes against Iran’s missile launchers, military installations and weapons industry, Trump returned to a favourite foreign policy pressure tool – tariffs – effectively warning China and Russia in a social media post against restocking Tehran’s military inventories.
But the US Supreme Court stripped the US president of his fastest and broadest tariff authority, the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, in February when it ruled that his broadest global tariffs imposed under the 1977 law were illegal.
“A Country supplying Military Weapons to Iran will be immediately tariffed, on any and all goods sold to the United States of America, 50%, effective immediately. There will be no exclusions or exemptions! President DJT,” Trump wrote on the Truth Social site, without naming any countries.
China and Russia have helped Iran build military capacity to counter US and Israeli pressure, supplying missiles, air-defence systems and dual-use technologies intended to bolster deterrence. That support appeared capped during the US-Israeli attacks on Iran. Both Beijing and Moscow have denied supplying any weapons recently, although allegations against Russia have persisted.
Reuters reported in February, prior to the first US and Israeli strikes on Iran, that Tehran was considering a purchase of supersonic anti-ship cruise missiles from China. Reuters also reported in March that China’s top semiconductor maker, SMIC, has sent chipmaking tools to Iran’s military, according to two senior Trump administration officials.
“This is a China-related threat, the way I read it. And China will read it that way,” said Josh Lipsky, vice president and chair of international economics at the Atlantic Council.
Although drone and missile parts routinely flow from Chinese entities to Iran, evading US sanctions, Lipsky said Trump was unlikely to follow through with new tariffs in the near term because that would derail his planned trip to Beijing to meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping.
On Tuesday, US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer said Trump would seek to maintain the current stability in the US-China relationship, to preserve US access to Chinese-produced rare-earth minerals and magnets while maintaining prior tariff levels. Greer said Trump wanted to avoid a ‘massive confrontation’ with Xi.
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