New Delhi:

China on Friday said it would raise tariffs on US goods to 125 per cent from 84 per cent, hours after President Xi Jinping urged the European Union to join hands with Beijing in resisting “unilateral bullying”, referring to the massive tariffs imposed by President Donald Trump.

The new levy, which will come into effect on Saturday, was announced after Trump this week raised the tariffs for China to 145 per cent, further escalating the ongoing trade war between the world’s top two economies.

The Chinese finance ministry said further action by the US will be ignored because “at the current tariff level, there is no possibility of market acceptance for US goods exported to China”.

“The United States’ imposition of round upon round of abnormally high tariffs on China has become a numbers game with no practical significance in economics,” it said.

“If the US continues to play the tariff numbers game, China will ignore it,” a spokesperson said.

Washington’s levies “(caused) the current world economy, global markets and multilateral trading systems to suffer serious shocks and severe turbulence”, a spokesperson for Beijing’s Commerce Ministry said.

Beijing also said that President Trump decided to freeze tariffs on other countries partly after “pressure from China”.

The US President on Wednesday announced a 90-day pause on his sweeping tariffs on all countries, barring China. He said he was raising tariffs on Chinese imports, citing a “lack of respect” from Beijing.

A previous round of US tariffs had come into force on Wednesday, hiking up duties on Chinese imports to 104 per cent.

China then responded to the 104 per cent duties, saying it would raise its tariffs on US imports from 34 per cent to 84 per cent, effective from Thursday.