China has launched a surprise trade war that threatens to choke world markets, President Donald Trump announced Friday, promising reciprocal countermeasures against the Communist regime.

“Some very strange things are happening in China!,” Pres. Trump explained in a social media post:

“They are becoming very hostile, and sending letters to Countries throughout the World, that they want to impose Export Controls on each and every element of production having to do with Rare Earths, and virtually anything else they can think of, even if it’s not manufactured in China.”

“It would ‘clog’ the Markets, and make life difficult for virtually every Country in the World, especially for China,” Trump warned, calling China’s move unprecedented.

“It came out of nowhere,” Trump reported:

“Our relationship with China over the past six months has been a very good one, thereby making this move on Trade an even more surprising one.”

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“This was a real surprise, not only to me, but to all the Leaders of the Free World.”

While China has “quietly amassed” a monopoly position on the sale of some rare earth products, the U.S. has monopoly positions that are “much stronger and more far reaching than China’s” that it has restrained from using – “UNTIL NOW!” – President Trump announced:

“Dependent on what China says about the hostile ‘order’ that they have just put out, I will be forced, as President of the United States of America, to financially counter their move.

“For every Element that they have been able to monopolize, we have two.”

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“One of the Policies that we are calculating at this moment is a massive increase of Tariffs on Chinese products coming into the United States of America.”

“There are many other countermeasures that are, likewise, under serious consideration,” President Trump added.