Trump’s Massive Tariffs Upend Global Trade

By Staff, Agencies

Despite rattled financial markets, threats of retaliation and some of President Donald Trump’s biggest supporters encouraging him to back off his signature economic policy, he didn’t give in. His administration piled on heaps of new “reciprocal” tariffs Wednesday on dozens of American allies and adversaries alike, aiming to — as he claims — restore fairness and boost American manufacturing.

Goods from China, by far the biggest target, are now subject to at least a 104% tariff. Trump tacked on even higher tariffs than initially announced after Beijing didn’t back off its promise to impose 34% retaliatory tariffs Tuesday.

The reciprocal rates, which aren’t exactly reciprocal, were calculated by dividing a country’s trade deficit with the US by its exports to the country and multiplying by 1/2. They range from 11% to a whopping 50%. Barring Mexico and Canada, America’s other top trading partners were hardly spared in this round. The EU was hit with a 20% reciprocal tariff, China at 34%, Japan at 24%, Vietnam at 46% and South Korea at 25%.

These new rates come just days after Trump imposed a 10% universal tariff on all countries’ imports, aside from Mexico and Canada.

“Our country and its taxpayers have been ripped off for more than 50 years. But it is not going to happen anymore,” Trump said last week when announcing the tariffs, the highest the nation has seen in over a century.

Hours before the tariff went into effect Tuesday, Trump made similar comments on, adding that other countries, especially China, have “left us for dead, frankly.”

Ultimately, Trump’s tariffs threaten to escalate a global trade war. China, already set to escalate its retaliation against US, vowed to double down even more. China’s Commerce Ministry said Tuesday the country would “fight to the end” of the trade war.

Trump, meanwhile, said in a Truth Social post on Tuesday that “China also wants to make a deal, badly, but they don’t know how to get it started.”

Despite dozens of countries offering to negotiate, it’s not clear that deals can be worked out quickly — if at all. Trump and members of his administration have said that what they consider non-tariff trade barriers — which include currency manipulation, tax policies viewed as unfair and the use of sweatshop labor — are more important than tariffs. That’s why they’ve rejected various nations’ offers to set their tariffs to 0% on US goods in exchange for the same treatment.

Trump’s tariffs have hit the world’s second-largest economy, China, the hardest. Now Beijing is going head-to-head with its larger rival, the US, in a full-blown trade war.