Trump threatens additional 50% tariffs on China while opening door for negotiations with other trading partners

U.S. President Donald Trump has made it clear that there's no change of plan for his reciprocal tariffs.

He further warned of an extra 50% tariff on China while opening the door for negotiations with other trading partners.

Our Moon Hye-ryeon reports.

U.S. President Donald Trump confirmed that the sweeping tariffs announced last week will be rolled out without delay, and threatened further import taxes on China.

Taking to social media on Monday, he said that Washington could impose an additional 50 percent tariff on Beijing – unless it withdraws its retaliatory 34 percent tariffs on U.S. goods.

The escalation of the trade war between the two countries brings the total rate levied on Chinese imports to 104 percent.

This is expected to have a staggering impact, as China was the second-largest trading partner with the U.S. last year.

Trump also warned that unless Beijing accepts his demands, its negotiations with the U.S. will come to a standstill.

Meanwhile, negotiations with other countries are due to begin immediately.

South Korea is among the countries that may engage in negotiations with the U.S., as its Minister for Trade is scheduled to meet with the U.S. Department of Commerce and the Office of the United States Trade Representative in the coming days.

Talking with reporters at the airport ahead of his flight to Washington, Minister Cheong In-kyo discussed Seoul's strategy for the upcoming talks --including increasing LNG imports from the U.S.

"In order to reduce U.S. tariffs, we need to reduce the U.S. trade deficit—which, from our perspective, is a trade surplus. Since it is difficult to reduce our exports, we must increase our imports. In that regard, we have been reviewing various packages to help resolve the trade balance issue."

Starting from Wednesday, the U.S. will levy rates exceeding the 10 percent baseline for reciprocal tariffs.

For South Korea, a total tariff rate of 25 percent will apply.

During a meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Trump said that these levies will be implemented as planned, but he was open to "fair deals".

"We have many, many countries that are coming to negotiate deals with us, and they're going to be fair deals. And in certain cases, they're going to be paying substantial tariffs. They'll be fair deals."

This marks a shift from earlier statements, which said that there would be no negotiations for the time being.

During interviews with various media outlets, White House officials said that such deals would need to be "really great" for American manufacturing and farmers – and countries would need to do more than just lowering their tariffs for relief.

Moon Hye-ryeon, Arirang News.