At 0:50 on March 23, 2018, President Trump formally signed a memorandum of understanding to China at the White House. Levy tariffs on US $60 billion imports from China and restrict Chinese enterprises from investing in the US. It announced that the United States would impose a 25% tariff on China's aerospace, information and communications technology, machinery and other products.

With the start of the Sino-US trade war, the United States imposed tariffs on some commodities in China, including aluminum products, which will affect the Chinese aluminum industry to some extent. A spokesman for the Ministry of Commerce said that the US side took 232 measures against imported steel and aluminium products and abused the WTO "security exception" clause, which constituted a safeguard measure in essence. Moreover, the measures were only aimed at a few countries, seriously violating the principle of non-discrimination as the cornerstone of the multilateral trading system and seriously violating China's interests. In the early morning of April 2, Beijing time, the State Council officially announced the decision to impose tariffs on 128 imports of 7 categories originating in the United States, which came into effect on the same day.