President Donald Trump has announced new import taxes on all goods entering the US, in the biggest upheaval of the international trade order since the aftermath of World War Two.
His plan sets a baseline tariff of 10% on all imports, consistent with his proposal during last year’s White House campaign.
Items from about 60 trade partners that the White House described as the “worst offenders”, including the European Union and China, face higher rates – payback for unfair trade policies, Trump said.
Analysts said the trade war escalation was likely to lead to higher prices for Americans and slower growth in the US, while some countries around the world could be plunged into recession.
But in Wednesday’s announcement at the White House, Trump said the measures were necessary because countries were taking advantage of the US by imposing high tariffs and other trade barriers.
Declaring a national emergency, the Republican president said the US had for more than five decades been “looted, pillaged, raped and plundered by nations near and far, both friend and foe alike”.
“It’s our declaration of economic independence,” Trump said in the Rose Garden against a backdrop of US flags.
The White House said the US would start charging the 10% tariffs on 5 April, with the higher duties for certain nations starting on 9 April.”
Today we are standing up for the American worker and we are finally putting America first,” Trump said, calling it “one of the most important days, in my opinion, in American history”.
His decision stunned many analysts.
“He just dropped a nuclear bomb on the global trading system,” Ken Rogoff, former chief economist at the International Monetary Fund, told the BBC.
Canada and Mexico not affected
Tariffs are taxes on imports. On the campaign trail last year, Trump said he would use them to boost manufacturing, promising a new age of US prosperity.
The import taxes could raise $2.2tn (£1.7tn) of revenue by 2034, according to the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office.
He spent weeks previewing Wednesday’s announcement, which followed other orders raising tariffs on imports from China, foreign cars, steel and aluminium and 25% on some goods from Mexico and Canada.
For now, the White House said the latest changes would not change anything for Mexico and Canada, two of America’s closest trading partners.
But other allies will face new tariffs, including 10% for the UK and 20% for the European Union, said Trump.
The measure introduces a new 34% tariff on goods from China, on top of an existing 20% levy, bringing total duties to at least 54%.
The tariff rate will be 24% on goods from Japan, and 26% from India.
Some of the highest duties will hit exports from countries that have seen a rush of investment in recent years, as firms shifted supply chains away from China following tariffs in Trump’s first term.
Goods from Vietnam and Cambodia will be hit with 46% and 49% respectively.
Higher levies will also fall on much smaller nations, with products from the southern African country of Lesotho facing 50%.
