China calls US tariffs a ‘numbers game’ that ‘will become a joke’

China blasted President Donald Trump’s tariffs on Friday as a “numbers game” that “will become a joke”, as Beijing raised reciprocal levies on US imports to 125 percent and said it would go no further.

Washington’s duties on Chinese products have “become a numbers game with no practical significance in economics”, a spokesperson for Beijing’s commerce ministry said. “It will only further expose the United States’s… bullying and coercion. It will become a joke.”