Search for: Which country will be hit with which US tariffs?

Trump's trade war has now degenerated into a rather confusing stream of tariffs, threats, deadlines and postponed deadlines.

On April 2nd, Trump announced high to extremely high "reciprocal" tariffs on much of the world. The official narrative is that these tariffs would be equivalent to the trade barriers other countries impose on the US, but in reality, they were simply based on the US's trade deficit with those countries. That is, the difference between what the US exports to and imports from the country in question.

After the announcement, things moved very quickly: stock markets plummeted and government bond yields soared. The tariffs were soon suspended until July 9th. Until then, the 10 percent base rate would apply to virtually all countries. Within those 90 days, all these countries would then have to reach a trade deal with the US.

That failed. Only the UK and Vietnam reached a limited deal. After a massive escalation, a temporary agreement was also reached with China, primarily to buy time.

And so the July 9th deadline was also abandoned. Meanwhile, the Trump administration is sending letters to countries imposing tariffs without further negotiation. These letters also state, without exception, that if the country in question also raises its own tariffs on American products, that same percentage will be added to the US tariff.

The new tariffs will take effect on August 1st, and all other "reciprocal tariffs" have also been postponed until that date. The big question is what tariff rate the Americans have in mind for the European Union. In any case, the EU has not yet received a tariff letter like many other countries have. Negotiations between the US and the EU are still ongoing.