Trump Announces ‘Fair and Reciprocal’ Tariff Plan
I mean, if they’re charging us tariffs, why not charge them? I say this as someone who hates tariffs!
President Donald Trump said:
And on trade, I have decided, for purposes of fairness, that I will charge a reciprocal tariff, meaning whatever countries charge the United States of America, we will charge them. No more, no less. In other words, they charge us a tax or tariff, and we charge them the exact same tax or tariff. Very simple.Nobody knows what that number is unless you go by the individual country. You can see what it is if you go to the individual country and you look at what they’re charging us. In almost all cases, they’re charging us vastly more than we charge them. But those days are over.
“We want a level playing field for all American workers… I’ve instructed my Secretary of State, my Secretary of Commerce, Secretary of Treasury, and U.S. Trade Representative to do all necessary work to deliver reciprocity,” said Trump.
Here are a few examples:
- The U.S. tariff on ethanol is a mere 2.5%. Yet Brazil charges the U.S. ethanol exports a tariff of 18%. As a result, in 2024, the U.S. imported over $200 million in ethanol from Brazil while the U.S. exported only $52 million in ethanol to Brazil.
- The U.S. average applied Most Favored Nation (MFN) tariff on agricultural goods is 5%. But India’s average applied MFN tariff is 39%. India also charges a 100% tariff on U.S. motorcycles, while we only charge a 2.4% tariff on Indian motorcycles.
- The European Union can export all the shellfish it wants to America. But the EU bans shellfish exports from 48 of our states, despite committing in 2020 to expedite approvals for shellfish exports. As a result, in 2023, the U.S. imported $274 million in shellfish from the EU but exported only $38 million.
- The EU also imposes a 10% tariff on imported cars. Yet the U.S. only imposes a 2.5% tariff.
- A 2019 report found that across 132 countries and more than 600,000 product lines, United States exporters face higher tariffs more than two-thirds of the time.
Trump also hopes the moves bring businesses back to America:
REPORTER: Have you talked to any CEOs since the tariffs were announced for steel and aluminum? what’s the feedback from those?TRUMP: They are in love with it. As you know, in Pennsylvania, U.S. Steel is through the roof. They’re all through the roof. That’s why I didn’t want U.S. Steel to make a deal with Japan or anybody else. I think it’s going to do great.But I think maybe more than anybody else, steel companies and aluminum companies, they’re in love with what’s happened. And this will eventually be the car companies, chip companies. We have to have chips made in this country right now. Everything’s made in Taiwan, practically, almost all of it, a little bit in South Korea. But everything, almost all of it, is made in Taiwan, and we want it to be made..we want those companies to come to our country. In all due respect, they took the business away. Taiwan took our chip business away. We had these great companies that did so well, and it was taken from us, and we want that business back. We want it back in the United States. And if they don’t bring it back, we’re not going to be very happy.REPORTER: …pharmaceuticals as well in China…that’s national security…TRUMP: China and other places…We want to get the pharmaceuticals and drug businesses back into the United States.
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