Importance Score: 75 / 100 🔴
President Donald Trump made good on his campaign promise to implement sweeping new tariffs during a Wednesday afternoon event in the White House Rose Garden.
‘In a few moments, I will sign a historic executive order instituting reciprocal tariffs on countries throughout the world,’ Trump teased.
Trump was surrounded by Vice President J.D. Vance, House Speaker Mike Johnson, Cabinet members and workers in hard hits to usher in his so-called ‘Make America Wealthy Again’ policies.
‘My fellow American, this is liberation day, we’ve been waiting for a long time,’ Trump said.
In a blistering tirade Trump slammed ‘friend and foe’ for ‘ripping off’ America and condemned ‘foreign scavengers.’
He talked of other nations that had ‘pillaged, raped and plundered’ the U.S. and ‘foreign cheaters’ who ‘ransacked’ American factories.
It took nearly 20 minutes before Trump shared the details.
‘For nations that treat us badly we will calculate the combined rate of all their tariffs, non-monetary barriers and other forms of cheating. And because we are being very kind … We will charge them approximately half of what they charge us,’ Trump said.
All countries around the world would pay the U.S. at least 10 percent on imports.
Trump held up a large sign that showed the calculations.
President Donald Trump announced sweeping reciprocal tariffs during his Liberation Day event in the White House Rose Garden Wednesday afternoon
President Donald Trump holds up a giant chart showing some of the reciprocal tariffs his administration plans to charge foreign countries. Every country will be charged at least a 10 percent tariff to import goods to the U.S.
Meanwhile White House aides passed out paper copies of the chart to reporters at the back of the crowd.
The European Union, for instance, charges the U.S. 39 percent tariff, so in turn, the U.S. would charge the EU 20 percent.
‘They rip us off, it’s so hard to see … it’s pathetic,’ Trump commented on the EU.
The floor of the reciprocal tariffs was set at 10 percent – so the United Kingdom, which only charges the U.S. a 10 percent tariff, would only pay 10 percent in return.
Trump had been heralding the tariff announcement as ‘Liberation Day’ for weeks but up until the event kicked off, it appeared some of the details hadn’t been fully worked out.
The Washington Post reported Tuesday that some advisers had floated a 20 percent baseline rate – higher than what the president revealed.
In the hours ahead of the announcement, CBS News reported that Trump would use the Rose Garden event – the first of his second term – to officially announce the creation of the External Revenue Service.
Israel made a last-ditch effort to get out of U.S. tariffs with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announcing that his country would drop all the remaining import taxes on U.S. items.
Israel and the U.S. already have a free trade agreement, but there were some duties on U.S. imports.
Trump’s will-he-or-won’t-he on tariffs have already created stock market turmoil, raised the odds of a recession and started to push up inflation on household items, with economic experts fearing even more price hikes.
Ahead of ‘Liberation Day,’ Trump imposed a 25 percent tariff on steel and aluminum, a 20 percent tariff on shipments from China and up to 25 percent on goods from Canada and Mexico that weren’t covered in the Trump-signed trade deal.
Last week Trump announced a 25 percent tariff on foreign cars set to take effect on Thursday.
The White House Rose Garden was utilized for the first time of President Donald Trump’s second term for the tariff announcement
House Speaker Mike Johnson (center) chats with Administrator of the Small Business Administration Kelly Loeffler (left) and
Health and Human Service Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. arrives for President Donald Trump’s tariff Rose Garden announcement at the White House on Wednesday
The president has also threatened to slap a 200 percent tariff on all wine and spirits from the European Union after the Europeans announced a planned 50 percent tariff on American whiskey.
That move was in reaction to Trump’s 25 percent tariff on European steel and aluminum.
In addition, he’s flirted with implementing tariffs on agricultural goods, lumber, copper, computer chips, pharmaceuticals.
He proposed blanket tariffs on Colombia – which he dropped.
Trump also proposed blanket tariffs on the European Union, a top U.S. ally; on Russia, over the war in Ukraine; on any country that buys fuel from Venezuela; and on BRICs nations, for wanting to develop a currency to compete with the U.S. dollar.
Trump has enacted tariffs on $800 billion worth of goods as of March 21, The Washington Post said.