Trump, who takes office on January 20, said he would impose "an additional 10 per cent tariff, above any additional tariffs" on imports from China until Beijing clamped down on trafficking of the chemical precursors used to make the deadly drug.
The two superpowers are setting out their positions ahead of the former president's return to the White House. Trump's first term resulted in a trade war that uprooted global supply chains and hurt every economy as inflation and borrowing costs shot up.
Editorials in Chinese communist party mouthpieces China Daily and the Global Times warned the next occupant of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue to not make China a "scapegoat" for the US' fentanyl crisis or "take China's goodwill for granted."
"The excuse the president-elect has given to justify his threat of additional tariffs on imports from China is far-fetched," China Daily said.
Trump's tariffs threat is rattling the Chinese Communist Party, analysts say. (AP PHOTO)
"There are no winners in tariff wars. If the US continues to politicise economic and trade issues by weaponising tariffs, it will leave no party unscathed."
Economists have begun downgrading their growth targets for China's $US19 trillion economy for 2025 and 2026 in anticipation of further tariffs promised by Trump during the election campaign, and are warning Americans to brace for an increase in the cost of living.
"For now the only thing we know for sure is that the risks in this area are high," said Louis Kuijs, chief Asia economist at S&P Global Ratings, which on Sunday lowered its China growth forecast for 2025 and 2026 to 4.1 per cent and 3.8 per cent, respectively.
"What we assumed in our baseline is an across-the-board (tariff) increase from around 14 per cent now to 25 per cent. Thus, what we assumed is a bit more than the 10 per cent on all imports from China."
Trump is threatening Beijing with far higher tariffs than the 7.5 per cent-25 per cent levied on Chinese goods during his first term.
"China already has a template for dealing with the previous US tariff policy," the Global Times quoted Gao Lingyun, an analyst at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences in Beijing, as saying.
"Using counternarcotics issues to increase tariffs on Chinese goods is untenable and unpersuasive," he added.
Trump previously said he would introduce tariffs in excess of 60 per cent on Chinese goods.
The threat is rattling China's industrial complex, which sells goods worth more than $US400 billion annually to the US and hundreds of billions more in components for products Americans buy from elsewhere.
His pick of trade lawyer Jamieson Greer as new US trade representative elevates a key veteran of Trump's first term trade war against China and points to a bruising four years for trade negotiators the world over.
Greer served as chief of staff to Trump's former US Trade Robert Lighthizer, who renegotiated the North American free trade deal with Canada and Mexico.
The president-elect looks set to tear up that agreement on his first day in office.
China can expect to bear the brunt of Trump's efforts to bring down the US' trade deficit and bring about the "manufacturing renaissance" he promised on the campaign trail.
"What the future will bring on this front is hard to say," S&P Global's Kuijs said. "There are many uncertainties. There is still a large increase to go to get to 60 per cent."
