President Donald Trump announced “Liberation Day” reciprocal tariffs on Wednesday at a “Make America Wealthy Again” event in the Rose Garden at the White House.
The reciprocal tariffs will add new restrictions to countries with duties on U.S. goods. The U.S. will calculate the “combined rate of all their tariffs,” Trump said, and charge them “approximately half of what they have been charging us.”
Trump called it a “kind reciprocal.” It’s “not a full reciprocal but it would have been tough for a lot of countries,” he said.
In the speech, he said China will face a reciprocal 34% tariff, the EU 20%, and Japan 24% percent. There will also be a minimum baseline tariff of 10%.
“We’re going to start being smart and we’re going to start being very wealthy,” Trump said.
Trump said the reciprocal tariffs will bring a “golden age” when “jobs and factories will come roaring back into our country.”
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Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said earlier this week that the president had been working on “perfecting” the deal “for quite some time.”
There are already tariffs in effect, including 20% on Chinese imports and 25% on certain goods from Canada and Mexico. NBC reports that a notice published Wednesday by the Commerce Department says the Trump administration is imposing a 25% tariff on beer and empty aluminum cans beginning at 12:01 a.m. on Friday. A 25% tariff on autos and auto parts imports is set to take effect on Thursday.
“There is no tariff if you build your plant and products in America,” Trump said.
The U.S. hit a record $1.2 trillion last year for its trade deficit in goods, the New York Times reported last month — its largest being with China, at $295.4 billion.
However, there is more on the table: Last week, Trump said that he could potentially reduce tariffs on China in exchange for the country’s cooperation on a TikTok deal. That deadline is Friday.
Will tariffs affect consumers?
A professor in the Department of Economics at the University of South Carolina Darla Moore School of Business told Bankrate that a tariff on fresh agricultural goods could show up in a few days, while a heavy equipment manufacturer with more inventory, for example, could take months before the cost filters to consumers’ wallets.
However, some businesses plan to absorb the cost of tariffs themselves.
Laurence Spiewak, the CEO of Suerte Tequila, a Colorado-based company, told NBC News that they won’t increase prices.
“Tequila margins are stronger than ever,” Spiewak said.
Meanwhile, Bloomberg is reporting that Walmart, the world’s largest retailer, is asking suppliers to cut prices by as much as 10% for each round of tariffs, to alleviate the impact on consumers.
This is a breaking news story and will be updated.
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