President Donald Trump on Wednesday signed an executive order to implement a wide range of “reciprocal tariffs” on other countries, vowing revenge on nations that tax the United States.
“Our country and its taxpayers have been ripped off for more than 50 years, but it is not going to happen anymore,” Trump said in a “Make America Wealthy Again” ceremony at the White House’s Rose Garden. “I will sign a historic executive order instituting reciprocal tariffs on countries throughout the world.”
“They do it to us and we do it to them,” the Republican president added. “Very simple.”
Trump at the ceremony held up a chart that showed a wide 10 to 50% range in the taxes on countries that include China, India, Japan, Vietnam, Indonesia, as well as the European Union. The chart lays out the tariffs and other trade costs that those countries, according to Trump, have placed on U.S. imports. The U.S. will now charge a tariff on each country that is equal to half of the number America calculated, in addition to existing tariffs. It is not clear what formula the U.S. is using to determine the rates.
A host of tariffs are slated to take effect Wednesday and Thursday, adding taxes on a range of products that include cars and all products from the European Union. Trump has also threatened a 200% tariff on wine and alcoholic products from the European Union, a 25% tariff on all pharmaceuticals, and a tariff on all products from nations that import Iranian or Russian oil. But he has not specified when, if ever, those would take effect.
Trump has gone back and forth on tariffs — announcing some, delaying some, narrowing some — but the incoming levies mark an escalation in Trump’s global trade war. It is an attempt by Trump to change the global economic order, and punish countries that he argues do not buy enough American products and have a trade deficit with the U.S.
Some nations, like Canada and China, have already responded by implementing tariffs on some U.S. goods, and more are likely to come. That means the prices that Americans pay for goods and services will rise as companies pass the price increases onto consumers. The Trump administration continues to maintain, against the history of tariffs, that the levies will result in billions of dollars of economic growth for the U.S. after some short-term pain.
