Trump's latest move is due to enter effect on Tuesday alongside sweeping 25 percent levies on Canadian and Mexican imports, intensifying a brewing trade war between the world's two largest economies.

The 10 percent tariff on Chinese imports will come on top of an existing levy of the same rate imposed by Trump on China earlier this month.

In response to Trump's allegations that Beijing is contributing to a deadly fentanyl crisis in the United States -- his justification for the tariffs -- a spokesperson for China's commerce ministry said in a statement Friday that Washington was "shifting the blame".

"China is one of the countries with the strictest and most thorough anti-narcotics policy in the world," the statement read.

"But the US side has always ignored these facts," it said.

"If the US side insists on going its own way, the Chinese side will take all necessary countermeasures to defend its legitimate rights and interests," it said.

The statement also warned that the tariff hike "is not conducive to solving (the United States') own problems", adding that it would "increase the burden on American companies and consumers, and undermine the stability of the global industrial chain".