China’s Ministry of Commerce has objected to Washington’s latest tariff on the country’s goods but signalled it will hold off on retaliation for now, noting the 12.5 per cent duty keeps the United States within the ceiling that the Trump administration promised in earlier talks.

It added that the US had previously promised Beijing that tariffs on Chinese goods would not exceed 20 per cent while reserving “the right to take all necessary measures”.

The US imposed fresh tariffs of 10 to 12.5 per cent on 60 trading partners on Thursday, including China and allies such as the EU, Japan and South Korea, following the Section 301 investigation.

Washington has another Section 301 investigation under way into excess industrial capacity, covering 16 economies including China and the European Union.

In a separate statement published on the same day, the commerce ministry also rejected US allegations that Chinese AI companies had “distilled” American models – a practice that uses the outputs of larger systems to train smaller ones.