The Chinese government has come out swinging in response to President Donald Trump’s threat Friday of 100 percent tariffs on China’s imports in response to Beijing’s new export curbs on rare earths. In its first official reaction to that warning, Beijing on Sunday signaled that it will retaliate against any new levies that the Trump administration may impose on Chinese imports.

Beijing dismissed Trump’s concerns about the restrictions it announced last week — which will block exports that contain even trace amounts of Chinese rare earths essential to U.S. manufacturers — as a “classic case of ‘double standards.’” And said the export ban is a justified response to what it described as “discriminatory” Trump administration trade curbs on items including high-end semiconductors.

“Threatening to impose high tariffs at every turn is not the right way to engage with China,” a spokesperson for China’s Commerce Ministry said in a statement Sunday. “China’s position on tariff wars has been consistent: we do not want to fight, but we are not afraid to fight.” The spokesperson said that Beijing is ready to retaliate with unspecified “corresponding measures” if Trump follows through on his threat.

The White House didn’t respond to a request for comment.

Trump announced the 100 percent tariff on Chinese imports — a hefty increase on the current average 55 percent levy on those goods — in a fiery Truth Social post Friday in which he slammed Beijing’s move to curtail exports of rare earths and related technologies as “absolutely unheard of in International Trade, and a moral disgrace in dealing with other Nations.” Trump said the tariff hike will go into effect Nov. 1 along with unspecified new export curbs on “any and all critical software.”

Trump decried China’s trade restrictions as “sinister and hostile” and blasted Beijing for upending what he declared has been a “very good” U.S.-China relationship over the past six months in an earlier Truth Social post that same day. He also indicated Beijing’s move would derail a long-anticipated meeting with China’s leader Xi Jinping on the sidelines of the APEC summit in South Korea later this month, a threat he walked back in a press briefing later that day.

Trump’s rhetoric reflects administration concern over the power Beijing wields through its global dominance of the critical minerals’ supply chain from mining to processing.

Those materials — commonly referred to as rare earth magnets — are key components in the production of everything from electrical vehicles to medical scanning equipment. Beijing’s dominance of the rare earths supply chain is of particular concern to the U.S. defense industry, which requires China-supplied minerals to produce everything from munitions and precision weaponry to military night vision equipment. Chinese state media referenced that vulnerability by stating last week that the export restrictions aimed to prevent “overseas military users” from accessing its rare earth technologies.

Beijing insists its rare earth export controls are a reasonable response to what it describes as recent Trump administration moves to harm the Chinese economy.

“In just over 20 days, the U.S. has continuously introduced a series of new restrictive measures against China,” the Commerce Ministry spokesperson said. “The U.S. actions have severely harmed China’s interests and seriously undermined the atmosphere for bilateral economic and trade talks.”

The latest twist in the U.S.-China trade war that Trump reignited in February with the imposition of tariffs linked to China’s role in America’s opioid overdose epidemic batters an already strained bilateral trade relationship weeks prior to a Nov. 10 deadline for a U.S.-China agreement aimed to restore predictability to those links.

The two countries agreed earlier this year to back off of tariff rates that went above triple-digits, but the U.S. has continued to deny China access to the most sophisticated computer chips due to concerns that they might benefit Beijing’s military-industrial complex. China has responded with an array of non-tariff trade retaliation measures and cut purchases of U.S. soybeans to underscore its negotiating muscle in ongoing trade talks. Those hostilities spilled over into the shipping sector when Beijing announced Friday that it is matching the Trump administration’s planned increase in port fees on Chinese-owned and operated cargo vessels that go into effect on Tuesday.

The threat of a resumption of tit-for-tat tariffs and other measures that could pummel U.S.-China trade will spook shippers and retailers in the run-up to the holiday shopping season and reignite concerns of a fresh inflationary surge fueled by higher levies. It also casts doubt on the utility of four high-level meetings since May between Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng aimed to restore stability to the U.S.-China relationship.

Trump appeared to address those concerns — which prompted the S&P to tumble more than 2 percent on Friday, its worst day since April — in a Truth Social post Sunday. “Don’t worry about China, it will all be fine! Highly respected President Xi just had a bad moment,” Trump said. “The U.S.A. wants to help China, not hurt it!!!”

That assurance is likely to land flat in Beijing.

“The tariff truce is officially over, giving way to a new dynamic of mutually assured disruption,” said Craig Singleton, senior China fellow at the hawkish Foundation for Defense of Democracies think tank in Washington. “Each side will keep testing how far it can weaponize economic interdependence without triggering uncontrollable fallout.”