Beijing rejects Washington's 'tariff evasion' accusations

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Should such situations arise, China will take necessary steps to safeguard its own interests, the spokesperson warned.

Jiang Wenran, founding director of the China Institute at the University of Alberta in Canada, said the White House report blames other countries for a problem created by tariffs imposed by the administration of US President Donald Trump, which have already been ruled as illegal by the Supreme Court.

He called the report's headline $75 billion estimate a model-derived figure, rather than a verified loss, noting that the report itself concedes its five estimates aren't comparable to each other.

Underlying the dispute is research from the Peterson Institute for International Economics, a think tank based in Washington, DC. It shows that US tariffs on China have not fully reduced US dependence on Chinese suppliers, as the supply chain has simply shifted through other countries and many shipped goods still include Chinese components.

The Peterson Institute research, which was released on Aug 4, examined value-added trade flows through 2024, and it found that US reliance on Chinese producers was much more than what bilateral trade data suggested.

Tariffs have been a central US trade policy tool since 2018, starting with steel and aluminum levies and duties on Chinese goods over "unfair trade practices", prompting retaliation from China and other trading partners. Former US president Joe Biden kept many tariffs in place, and more have been added under Trump's second term.

Steve Lamar, president and CEO of the American Apparel & Footwear Association, said importers are confused by rates that appear to legalize, while heavily taxing, activity that was previously prohibited.

Supply chain experts emphasized that globally interconnected manufacturing can make true origin genuinely hard to determine.

Drone imports

In a related development on Thursday, the US government imposed up to 100 percent tariffs on imported drones and their key components, including those from China, citing national security concerns.

By contrast, imports from the European Union, Japan, South Korea, Switzerland and Liechtenstein will generally face a 15 percent tariff, which is sharply below the maximum levy applied to "sensitive drones" from other countries and regions.

Wang Peng, a researcher at the Beijing Academy of Social Sciences, said the US is caught between its misguided national security concerns and its high dependence on Chinese imports.

"If dependence on Chinese drones constitutes a 'national security threat', then cutting off that supply when the US has no alternative is an even greater security threat," Wang added.

Yang Gao contributed to this story.