Today marks a momentous occasion as President Donald Trump’s robust global tariff initiative takes effect, striking back at nations that have benefitted from inequitable trade practices to the detriment of American workers.
Last Wednesday, President Trump declared the initiation of a 10% baseline tariff on all imports, effective April 5, 2025. This strategic move is designed to rectify decades of disadvantageous trade practices faced by American industries.
From the White House Rose Garden, Trump stated:
“For too long, other nations have taken advantage of our open markets while imposing barriers to our products. Those days are over.
American steel workers, auto workers, farmers, and skilled craftsmen. We have a lot of them here with us today. They really suffered, gravely. They watched in anguish as foreign leaders have stolen our jobs, foreign cheaters have ransacked our factories, and foreign scavengers have torn apart our once beautiful American dream. We had an American dream that you don’t hear so much about. You did four years ago, and you are now. But you don’t too often.
Now it’s our turn to prosper, and in so doing, use trillions and trillions of dollars to reduce our taxes and pay down our national debt.
And it will all happen very quickly. With today’s action, we are finally going to be able to make America great again, greater than ever before or. Jobs and factories will come roaring back into our country and you see it happening already. We will supercharge our domestic industrial base.
For nations that treat us badly, we will calculate the combined rate of all their tariffs, nonmonetary barriers, and other forms of cheating. And because we are being very kind, we will charge them approximately half of what they are and have been charging us. So the tariffs will be not a full reciprocal. I could have done that. Yes. But it would have been tough for a lot of countries.
For decades, the United States slashed trade barriers on other countries, while those nations placed massive tariffs on our products and created outrageous non-monetary barriers to decimate our industries.
And in many cases, the non-monetary barriers were worse than the monetary ones. They manipulated their currencies, subsidized their exports, stole our intellectual property, imposed exorbitant taxes to disadvantage our products, adopted unfair rules and technical standards, and created filthy pollution havens.
From 1789 to 1913, we were a tariff-backed nation. And the United States was proportionately the wealthiest it has ever been.
So wealthy, in fact, that in the 1880s they established a commission to decide what they were going to do with the vast sums of money they were collecting. We were collecting so much money so fast, we didn’t know what to do with it. Isn’t that a nice problem to have?
And my answer is very simple. If they complain, if you want your tariff rate to be zero, then you build your product right here in America. Because there is no tariff. If you build your plant, your product in America. And we’ve seen companies coming in like we’ve never seen before.”
On April 9, 2025, additional reciprocal tariffs will be implemented on countries with substantial trade surpluses, calculated based on their trade practices and deficits with the U.S. The formula used is: (Trade deficit ÷ Exports to the U.S.) × 0.5, which disproportionately impacts nations with significant trade surpluses relative to their exports.
Below is the list of countries affected via X user @unusual_whales: https://x.com/unusual_whales/status/1909810890284908985
Reciprocal Tariff Level: 104%
- China (cumulative rate combining existing 20%, a 34% reciprocal tariff, and an additional 50% escalation in response to Chinese retaliation). This applies to most Chinese exports to the U.S.
Reciprocal Tariff Level: 50–59%
- Lesotho – 50
Reciprocal Tariff Level: 40–49%
- Cambodia – 49
- Laos – 48
- Madagascar – 47
- Vietnam – 46
- Myanmar – 44
- Sri Lanka – 44
- Falkland Islands – 41
- Syria – 41
- Mauritius – 40
Reciprocal Tariff Level: 30–39%
- Iraq – 39
- Guyana – 38
- Bangladesh – 37
- Botswana – 37
- Liechtenstein – 37
- Serbia – 37
- Thailand – 36
- Bosnia and Herzegovina – 35
- North Macedonia – 33
- Angola – 32
- Fiji – 32
- Indonesia – 32
- Taiwan – 32
- Libya – 31
- Moldova – 31
- Switzerland – 31
- Algeria – 30
- Nauru – 30
- South Africa – 30
Reciprocal Tariff Level: 20–29%
- Pakistan – 29
- Tunisia – 28
- Kazakhstan – 27
- India – 26
- South Korea – 25
- Brunei – 24
- Japan – 24
- Malaysia – 24
- Vanuatu – 22
- Côte d’Ivoire – 21
- Namibia – 21
- European Union (27 countries) – 20
- Jordan – 20
- Nicaragua – 18
- Zimbabwe – 18
- Israel – 17
- Malawi – 17
- Philippines – 17
- Zambia – 17
- Mozambique – 16
- Norway – 15
- Venezuela – 15
- Nigeria – 14
- Chad – 13
- Equatorial Guinea – 13
- Cameroon – 11
- Democratic Republic of the Congo – 11
10% baseline tariff
Africa
- Benin – 10
- Burundi – 10
- Cabo Verde – 10
- Central African Republic – 10
- Comoros – 10
- Djibouti – 10
- Egypt – 10
- Eritrea – 10
- Eswatini – 10
- Ethiopia – 10
- Gabon – 10
- Gambia – 10
- Ghana – 10
- Guinea – 10
- Guinea-Bissau – 10
- Kenya – 10
- Liberia – 10
- Mali – 10
- Mauritania – 10
- Mayotte – 10
- Morocco – 10
- Niger – 10
- Réunion – 10
- Rwanda – 10
- São Tomé and Príncipe – 10
- Senegal – 10
- Sierra Leone – 10
- South Sudan – 10
- Sudan – 10
- Tanzania – 10
- Togo – 10
- Uganda – 10
North America & Central America
- Anguilla – 10
- Antigua and Barbuda – 10
- Bahamas – 10
- Barbados – 10
- Belize – 10
- Bermuda – 10
- Cayman Islands – 10
- Costa Rica – 10
- Dominica – 10
- Dominican Republic – 10
- El Salvador – 10
- Grenada – 10
- Guatemala – 10
- Haiti – 10
- Honduras – 10
- Jamaica – 10
- Martinique – 10
- Montserrat – 10
- Panama – 10
- Saint Kitts and Nevis – 10
- Saint Lucia – 10
- Saint Pierre and Miquelon – 10
- Saint Vincent and the Grenadines – 10
- Trinidad and Tobago – 10
- Turks and Caicos Islands – 10
South America
- Argentina – 10
- Bolivia – 10
- Brazil – 10
- Chile – 10
- Colombia – 10
- Ecuador – 10
- French Guiana – 10
- Paraguay – 10
- Peru – 10
- Suriname – 10
- Uruguay – 10
Asia
- Afghanistan – 10
- Armenia – 10
- Azerbaijan – 10
- Bahrain – 10
- Bhutan – 10
- Georgia – 10
- Iran – 10
- Kuwait – 10
- Kyrgyzstan – 10
- Lebanon – 10
- Maldives – 10
- Mongolia – 10
- Nepal – 10
- Oman – 10
- Qatar – 10
- Saudi Arabia – 10
- Singapore – 10
- Tajikistan – 10
- Timor-Leste – 10
- Turkey – 10
- Turkmenistan – 10
- United Arab Emirates – 10
- Uzbekistan – 10
- Yemen – 10
Europe
- Albania – 10
- Andorra – 10
- Gibraltar – 10
- Iceland – 10
- Kosovo – 10
- Monaco – 10
- Montenegro – 10
- San Marino – 10
- United Kingdom – 10
Oceania
- Australia – 10
- Christmas Island – 10
- Cocos (Keeling) Islands – 10
- Cook Islands – 10
- Kiribati – 10
- Marshall Islands – 10
- Micronesia – 10
- New Zealand – 10
- Norfolk Island – 10
- Papua New Guinea – 10
- Samoa – 10
- Solomon Islands – 10
- Tokelau – 10
- Tonga – 10
- Tuvalu – 10
Other / Territories
- British Indian Ocean Territory – 10
- French Polynesia – 10
- Heard and McDonald Islands – 10
- Saint Helena – 10
- Svalbard and Jan Mayen – 10
- Sint Maarten – 10
- Curaçao – 10
