China will likely enact its own duties that would hurt U.S. exporters, now that President Donald Trump has announced tariffs on steel and aluminum imports, analysts said.

"I believe that China would stick to trade responses by raising tariffs on select U.S. products that would hurt U.S. exporters, particularly in [the] agriculture sector," Wendy Cutler, vice president at the Asia Society Policy Institute and former acting deputy U.S. trade representative, said in a statement to CNBC.

Trump announced Thursday that the U.S. will set a new tariff of 25 percent on steel and 10 percent on aluminum imports. The tariffs are set to take effect as early as next week and will be applied broadly, without targeting specific countries.

China ranks 11 among the largest sources of U.S. steel imports, according to the International Trade Administration. But Trump has long had his eye on "unfair" trade with the Asian country. Thursday's announcement also comes as China's chief economic advisor, Liu He, is in Washington this week to try to ease trade tensions.

"China will use today's news as another opportunity to paint the U.S. as protectionist and themselves as victims and defenders of win-win globalization," Scott Kennedy, China expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said in an email. "It'll also give them time to more pick carefully calibrated responses."

The Chinese Embassy in DC did not immediately respond to a CNBC.com request for comment on this story.