President Donald Trump’s punishing new tariffs on more than 90 countries snapped into place after the stroke of midnight Thursday, the latest escalation in a global trade war that has started to exact a toll on the US economy.
Few of America’s major trading partners were spared under Trump’s updated slate of duties, which together have sent the average effective US tariff rate to its highest level in nearly a century, as he doubled down on a strategy that has driven up prices, constrained growth and spooked businesses around the world.
Trump announced the new rates in a series of executive orders he signed last week, some of which formalized the preliminary trade agreements that he had reached in recent days with the European Union and other countries.
The president has long maintained that these levies would help reset trade relationships that he deems unfair, raise new revenue for the US government, spur more US manufacturing and achieve other goals.
Trump’s tariffs have indeed helped generate money — roughly $152 billion through July, recent data show — while global markets on Thursday generally shrugged off the renewed trade brinkmanship.
A growing number of businesses have warned recently that they may no longer be able to absorb the rising costs of imported components and supplies. As a result, prices have started to climb, with the latest monthly measure of inflation showing that appliances, clothing and furnishings had become more expensive. The economy has grown, but only at an anemic pace.
The tariffs start at 15 per cent, targeting imports from countries including Bolivia, Ecuador, Iceland and Nigeria. Others, like Taiwan, have a 20 per cent tax applied to items sold to US buyers. Trump also imposed a much higher 50 per cent tariff on some goods from Brazil.
And on Wednesday, Trump said he would raise tariffs on India to 50 per cent by late August for buying Russian oil, the first half of which - around 25 per cent - kicks in from today. The president has signaled he could impose similar penalties on other countries, as he looks for ways to use trade policy to pressure Russia into halting its war against Ukraine.
“IT’S MIDNIGHT!!! BILLIONS OF DOLLARS IN TARIFFS ARE NOW FLOWING INTO THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA!” Trump proclaimed just before the deadline in a post on social media.
Around the world, the mood was decidedly more tense, as foreign leaders scrambled to make sense of Trump’s dizzying array of policies. From Taiwan to Switzerland, some countries scrambled without success to head off punishing tariffs in a last-minute rush of diplomacy.