BEIJING—China vowed to retaliate if the U.S. imposes newly threatened tariffs on Chinese goods and ruled out engaging in negotiations while Washington is escalating the pressure on Beijing over trade.
President Donald Trump’s announcement late Thursday that he was considering penalties on an additional $100 billion in Chinese goods brought a vehement response from the government. At a hastily-arranged briefing with reporters Friday night, Chinese Commerce Ministry spokesman Gao Feng described the U.S. move as “extremely wrong” and acknowledged the two governments were now in a battle.
“China is fully prepared to hit back forcefully and without hesitation,” Mr. Gao said. He said that China has put in place “detailed countermeasures” and those measures “don’t exclude any options.” Mr. Gao didn’t elaborate.
Mr. Gao denied that Beijing and Washington were engaged in any negotiations and said they haven’t done so “for a period of time,” despite remarks by some U.S. officials that both sides were trying to resolve the disputes.
“Under such circumstances, it’s even more unlikely for the two sides to engage in any kind of negotiations,” Mr. Gao said.
Beijing’s apparent refusal to negotiate marks a new phase in weeks of rising tensions during which China largely reacted with measured calm to Trump administration moves and kept open the door for dialogue.
Economists said the Trump administration’s latest action could leave the Chinese government facing options beyond tariffs to retaliate.
The additional penalties on $100 billion in imports from China would come on top of proposed tariffs on $50 billion in imports from China that Washington unveiled last week. The Trump administration aims to rebalance trade that last year favored China by $375 billion.
Beijing has responded in kind to the U.S. actions with penalties of a similar value. But if the Trump administration pursues an additional $100 billion in tariff, the new $150 billion total would exceed the roughly $130 billion in goods China imports from the U.S. That would force Beijing to seek other options.
Such measures, economists said, could include stepped-up regulation of American companies operating in China and using the threat of a trade war to rattle the U.S.’s larger and more important financial markets, compared with China’s smaller, less globally connected ones.
“China shouldn’t dance to the U.S.’s tune,” said Mei Xinyu, a researcher with the government-backed China Academy of International Trade and Economic Cooperation. He pointed to the U.S. financial-services sector as one vulnerability.
Already unsteady after the exchange of trade salvos earlier in the week, markets slid Friday. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down about 1.6% in morning trading, following Asian markets broadly lower.
Beyond the threats of trade penalties, China has actually imposed tariffs on $3 billion worth of American farm goods and other products, answering similar levies placed by the U.S. on Chinese steel and aluminum.
In looking for retaliatory options beyond tariffs, economists said, Beijing can turn to its experience in punishing other countries it has had disputes with. For example, at different points in recent years China has banned group travel to the Philippines, Japan and South Korea, depriving them of revenue, according to officials in those countries.
And last year consumer boycotts and stepped-up inspections by regulators so crimped business at Lotte Group’s hypermarts and supermarkets in China that the South Korean conglomerate decided to sell some of them. Though Beijing officials denied a connection, the boycotts and inspections came after South Korea agreed to deploy a U.S. missile-defense system that China said endangered its national security.
“There’s every prospect that U.S. firms could be leaned on, face additional and aggravating regulation, or be sanctioned somehow,” said George Magnus, an associate at the University of Oxford’s China Center and a former chief economist for UBS.
And going after American companies, he said, would further anger the White House and “pretty soon we’re approaching meltdown.”
Ha Jiming, a former economist with Goldman Sachs and now at China Finance 40 Forum, a Beijing think tank, said that Beijing might have few options but to reduce holdings of U.S. Treasurys. That could raise borrowing costs for the U.S., but other economists have cautioned that it would also increase the value of the yuan, making Chinese exports less competitive.
Senior Chinese officials have offered assurances that Beijing will continue to follow market-based principles in managing its foreign-exchange stockpile.
“China is a responsible investor in global capital markets,” Chinese Vice Finance Minister Zhu Guangyao told reporters Wednesday.
Mr. Mei, the Chinese researcher, said China is considering other options because its response has to match the Trump administration’s threats. “This is a bet on whose stance is tougher,” he said.
—Lin Zhu contributed to this article.
Write to Lingling Wei at lingling.wei@wsj.com