China said on Saturday "the market has spoken" in rejecting US President Donald Trump's tariffs, and called on Washington for "equal-footed consultation" after global markets plunged in reaction to the trade levies that drew Chinese retaliation.

Xinhua news agency also published the central government's stance, saying the US should "stop using tariffs as a weapon to suppress China's economy and trade."

"The market has spoken," Foreign Ministry spokesperson Guo Jiakun said in a post on Facebook on Saturday. He also posted a picture capturing Friday's falls on US stock markets.

Trump introduced additional 34 percent tariffs on Chinese goods as part of steep levies imposed on most US trade partners, bringing the total duties on China this year to 54 percent.

Trump also closed a trade loophole that had allowed low-value packages from China to enter the US duty-free.

This prompted retaliation from China on Friday, including extra levies of 34 percent on all US goods and export curbs on some rare earths, escalating the trade war between the world's two largest economies.

Global stock markets plummeted following China's retaliation and Trump's comments on Friday that he would not change course, extending sharp losses that followed Trump's initial tariff announcement earlier in the week and marking the biggest losses since the pandemic. For the week, the S&P 500 was down 9 percent.

"Now is the time for the US to stop doing the wrong things and resolve the differences with trading partners through equal-footed consultation," Guo wrote in English on Facebook.

In a separate statement published by the Xinhua news agency, the central government urged the US: "Stop using tariffs as a weapon to suppress China's economy and trade, and stop undermining the legitimate development rights of the Chinese people."

"China has taken and will continue to take resolute measures to safeguard its sovereignty, security and development interests," said the government.

Washington "seriously undermines the rules-based multilateral trading system, and seriously undermines the stability of the global economic order," it added.

Earlier on Saturday, several industry chambers of commerce ranging from those representing traders in metals and textiles to electronics, issued statements condemning the tariffs.

China's chamber of commerce, representing traders in food products, called on "China's food and agricultural products import and export industry to unite and strengthen cooperation to jointly explore domestic and foreign markets." (Reuters)