Trump’s 10% tariff on China takes effect as delay agreed for Mexico and Canada | Donald Trump

Donald Trump has fired the opening salvo of his trade war, imposing tariffs on China on Tuesday in a move he claims will strengthen the US economy, despite warnings it will increase prices and knock growth.

The US president pulled back from the brink of an economic conflict with Canada and Mexico, however, delaying threatened duties for another month following 11th-hour talks.

He pushed ahead with higher tariffs on China, introducing a 10% levy on all goods exported from the country to the US and further straining relations between the world’s two largest economies.

For exports from China, the US is also scrapping an exemption through which shipments valued at less than $800 have not faced tariffs. Popular Chinese retailers such as Shein and Temu have relied on the exemption to sell cheap goods in the US.

Following a call with Mexico’s president, Claudia Sheinbaum, on Monday, Trump agreed to postpone tariffs of 25% on Mexico – the latest of several delays – after she offered to send 10,000 of the country’s troops to its border with the US.

Talks with Justin Trudeau, the Canadian prime minister, also prompted Trump to postpone 25% tariffs on the country. Canada is implementing a $1.3bn border plan, Trudeau said, and will appoint a fentanyl czar, list cartels as a terrorists and “ensure 24/7 eyes on the border”.

As the US readied higher tariffs on China on Monday, the White House announced that Trump would speak with China’s president, Xi Jinping, later this week. Beijing has pledged to hit back with “countermeasures” and file a legal case against the US at the World Trade Organization.

Economists have warned Trump’s tariff plans risk raising prices for millions of Americans, just weeks after he pledged, upon taking office, to “rapidly” bring them down.

But addressing reporters in the Oval Office on Monday, Trump maintained that tariffs were a “very powerful” means of both strengthening the US economically and “getting everything else you want”.

Every country wants to agree a way to avoid US tariffs, the president claimed. “In all cases, they all wanna make deals.”

Trump had conceded over the weekend that they could cause “a little pain” in the US. “WILL THERE BE SOME PAIN? YES, MAYBE (AND MAYBE NOT!),” he wrote on social media. “BUT WE WILL MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN, AND IT WILL ALL BE WORTH THE PRICE THAT MUST BE PAID.”