Secret way China has been strangling Americans before Trump tariffs... and the crippling impact it has on you

China has been secretly halting exports of major U.S. commodities in a stealthy attempt to undermine Donald Trumps trade war and punish Americans. 

While Beijing has matched Trumps 125 percent tariff with one of its own against US-imported goods, they have also been using nontariff barriers to hit the presidents supporters the hardest, Politico reported.

Over the past four months, China has halted or significantly curtailed direct key U.S. agriculture and energy exports.

Many of these exports include U.S. farm goods, such beef, poultry and liquified natural gas. 

Those resources are largely produced in red states whose voters are far more likely to be Trump supporters, with China likely calculating that any pain people there feel could be used to undermine the president himself. 

A tariff, you can just pay it, and things just get more costly, said Ben Lilliston, director of rural strategies and climate change at the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy. But this is a full restriction on your ability to send product to that country. 

China declined to renew export licenses for hundreds of meatpacking plants, claiming the products are genetically modified or unsanitary.

The escalating trade war reached a fever pitch last week when the president boosted the tariffs on China to a whopping 125 percent.

Trump did grant some relief by sparring iPhones, laptops and other electronics from his brutal tariffs, with the majority of those gadgets made in the communist nation. 

The escalating trade war reached a fever pitch last week when Donald Trump boosted the tariffs on China to a whopping 125 percent

China has been using nontariff barriers to hit the presidents supporters the hardest, including halted or significantly curtailed direct key U.S. agriculture and energy exports

National Chicken Council spokesperson Tom Super told Politico that China has relied on nontariff barriers for years, and called Chinas claims about sanitary concerns bologna.

The antibiotic cited by Beijing has been banned in U.S. chicken production for decades, Super said, referencing the banned antibiotic furacilin, China says it found repeatedly in shipments from Mountaire Farms.

Experts said China is using their health complaints to mask their real intentions of hitting back in the trade war.

You dont want to see health and safety turned into political bargaining, said Darci Vetter, who was chief agricultural negotiator in the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative in the Obama administration. It turns carefully considered barriers based on science into a political issue.

This is what China does — trade action masquerading as legit public policy based on science, said Marc Busch, who has advised both USTR and the Commerce Department on technical trade barriers. 

The method gives Beijing two bangs for the buck — plausible deniability and lethality, Busch added.

These nontariff measures allow China to maintain that veneer of, "Were just following the rules — we have legitimate reasons to do these things," said Greta Peisch, former general counsel of the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative. Its part of Chinas narrative, and it should be of concern. 

China has also targeted the natural gas industry but quietly stopping their U.S. imports, data from commodity analyst firm Kpler found.

Many of these exports include U.S. farm goods, such beef, poultry and liquified natural gas, that come from rural areas where workers voted for Trump

The analysis showed that so far this year has imported just one cargo of gas, compared to 14 cargoes during the same period of 2024.

Since the last U.S.-China trade war, China has deliberately positioned its [liquefied natural gas] market as a geopolitical lever, preparing to weaponize it if relations with Washington soured again. That moment has arrived, said Leslie Palti-Guzman, energy security and climate change analyst at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

Trumps approval rating has started to drop amid the escalating tariff war and market turmoil.

The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll on Friday showed Trumps approval rating at 48 percent - down from the high water mark at the start of his term of 56 percent.

On April 1 - the day before his Liberation Day tariffs were announced - he still had a a positive approval rating of 51 percent.