“Liberation Day” is here — we wish you could see how hard we just rolled our eyes — with the U.S. ready to enact sweeping tariffs.
Driving the news: President Donald Trump is set to announce the specifics of new U.S. import tariffs at 4 p.m. ET, and it seems there will be little wiggle room to get out of them. Trump said on Monday that the tariffs will “start with all countries,” and the Washington Post reported that his aides had drafted a proposal for a blanket 20% tariff on most goods.
However, other plans have been discussed.
- Last month, Trump’s top economic adviser implied that the so-called “Dirty 15” — the top 15% of nations with the largest U.S. trade surpluses — would get higher tariffs.
- Trump has repeatedly said these are “reciprocal” tariffs, which could suggest that countries that have already taken countermeasures, like Canada, could be hit harder.
- Trump also discussed additional tariffs on specific sectors like copper, lumber, and pharmaceuticals to go with ones on steel, aluminum, and automobiles.
Zoom out: Meanwhile, the U.S. Senate will vote on a resolution to block tariffs targeting Canada on the basis that Trump’s justification for them is bogus. That said, the whole ordeal is mostly symbolic, as the measure likely won’t make it through Congress even if it passes.
Bottom line: It’s unclear what the fallout from all of this will be. However, a new study modelling the economic reaction of different scenarios found that, in the most extreme case, retaliatory responses by the whole rest of the world would result in a US$1.4 trillion global loss.—QH