President Donald Trump on Wednesday announced a new 10% across-the-board tariff in addition to reciprocal duties that will apply to specific trade partners, including China, the European Union, Japan and South Korea.
At an event in the Rose Garden Wednesday dubbed “Make America Wealthy Again,” and with his cabinet in attendance, the president asserted that the U.S. had long pursued a trade policy of “economic surrender,” but said it is now the U.S.’ “turn to prosper.”
Accordingly, he said all trading partners will face a new 10% duty. But some will also face higher reciprocal duties that the president said reflected both tariff and non-tariff barriers applied to U.S. exports in their markets.
“That means they do it to us and we do it to them. Very simple,” Trump said. He added that the rate was “discounted” from the rates those countries charge.
China is set to face reciprocal duties of 34%, while the European Union will face a rate of 20%, Japan 24%, India 26% and South Korea 25%, according to a handout the White House gave reporters in the Rose Garden. These duties include the 10% baseline tariff.
The new across-the-board tariff will kick in on April 5, according to a White House fact sheet; the country-specific reciprocal duties will take effect on April 9.
The White House fact sheet says the higher reciprocal tariffs were reserved for countries with which "the United States has the largest trade deficits."
Canada and Mexico, which have already been hit by new tariffs since Trump took office, will not be affected by the new actions, according to the White House fact sheet.
"In the event the existing fentanyl/migration IEEPA orders are terminated, [U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement] compliant goods would continue to receive preferential treatment, while non-USMCA compliant goods would be subject to a 12% reciprocal tariff," the fact sheet reads, referring to the International Emergency Economic Powers Act.
The duties will be imposed under emergency powers afforded to the president under the IEEPA -- the same law that underpinned recent tariff hikes on Mexico, Canada and China. The administration is arguing that a "large and persistent trade deficit" constitutes a national emergency.
Trump charged that the new across-the-board and reciprocal duties would raise revenue to fund his legislative priorities, as well as re-shore manufacturing, and secure market access concessions from U.S. trade partners.
“We will pry open foreign markets and break down foreign trade barriers and ultimately, more production at home will mean stronger competition,” the president said.
Senior Trump administration trade officials have been on Capitol Hill in recent weeks talking about the president’s tariff policy approach. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent spoke to Senate Republicans during lunch on Wednesday, hours before Trump’s announcement, and addressed Finance Committee senators on Monday evening. Meanwhile, U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer spoke to Republicans during a lunch last week.
Senators left those meetings with the sense that today’s reciprocal tariffs would serve as an initial rate that countries could bring down with concessions.
“As I understand, it’s a ceiling and it could be negotiated down,” Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., told Agri-Pulse as he left the lunch with Bessent on Wednesday.
Agricultural groups had been pressing the administration to consider U.S. farmers and ranchers in its trade policy approach, amid concerns over retaliation.
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"We hope continued discussions with our trading partners can resolve existing trade barriers and avoid long-term disruptions," National Wheat Growers Association CEO Chandler Goule said in a statement responding to Trump's plan. "Farmers face many challenges, and as the farm economy continues to be squeezed by the high cost of production and low commodity prices, we are concerned about how new tariffs on key farm inputs will hurt farmers' bottom line."
The Association of Equipment Manufacturers, whose member companies include Deere and AGCO, also raised concern about the new tariffs.
“While we agree that the key to a strong U.S. economy is building more products in America, we need certainty in the trade environment to make investments in domestic manufacturing. We are concerned that reciprocal tariffs on our trading partners will hurt our industry and our customers,” said Kip Eideberg, AEM’s senior vice president of government and industry relations.
The European Union is preparing to retaliate. The EU has already unveiled retaliatory tariffs to hit U.S. farm products in response to previous tariff hikes on steel and aluminum. In remarks following Trump's latest tariff announcement, EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said that the bloc is assembling "further countermeasures."
She had noted to the European Parliament on Tuesday that “all instruments are on the table.”
Everett Eissenstat, who served as the deputy director of Trump’s National Economic Council during his first term, told Agri-Pulse that countries that have struck a more conciliatory tone in recent weeks with the U.S. president could face an easier path in the medium to long-term.
“Countries that have shown a willingness to take into account the concerns of the President have are on a better pathway towards a more sustainable trade relationship,” Eissenstat said.
Those efforts at appeasement, however, were not acknowledged in the latest tariff announcement. Vietnam and Israel will still face new duties, despite slashing duties on U.S. exports ahead of the announcement – in Vietnam’s case, including a reciprocal duty of 46%. As will India, which scrapped a digital services tax that applied to U.S. tech firms.
In an interview with Bloomberg after the announcement, Bessent urged U.S. trade partners to avoid retaliating against the tariffs, or their tariff "ceiling" could go even higher. He also said he wasn't sure whether the administration would embark on negotiations to lower countries' duties.
The prospect of future reductions also does not help U.S. ag producers suffering from the immediate tariff effects, which stand to be extensive.
"Farmers don’t want tariffs,” Brian Kuehl, executive director of Farmers for Free Trade, said in a statement Wednesday morning. “In the midst of an already struggling farm economy, new tariffs threaten to raise input costs, close off key markets, increase uncertainty—and push more family farms to the brink of bankruptcy.”
House Agriculture Committee Ranking Member Angie Craig, D-Minn., argued that the new tariffs amounted to an initiation of a global trade war.
"By declaring a worldwide trade war, the administration is hurting American farmers, workers and consumers. Increasing input costs, shutting farmers out of export markets and causing middle-class families to pay more at the grocery store is not a winning strategy," Craig said in a statement. "In 2018, the Trump administration's trade wars cost our farmers $30 billion in lost exports. The tariffs announced today are broader than in 2018 and come as farmers struggle with widespread uncertainty. The losses from this trade war will force farms to close.”
Ahead of the tariff announcement, congressional Democrats were also vowing to push back against tariff hikes. In a press conference, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., told reporters his party would “fight these tariffs tooth and nail.”
“Trump's done a lot of bad things. This is way up there,” Schumer said, referring to new duties on Canadian products that went into effect last month.
The Senate issued a rebuke to Trump's tariffs on Canada just hours after the Rose Garden announcement. Four Republicans joined Democrats to vote for a resolution that challenged the economic emergency that underpinned the tariffs. The measure passed by one vote.
The House has already blocked a vote on a similar resolution. But the vote could serve as a springboard for additional measures to challenge the use of emergency presidential powers to impose new tariffs, the resolution's sponsor Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., told reporters on Wednesday.
Even Republicans that voted against the resolution were hesitant to endorse the president's latest tariff moves. Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., described the tariffs as a "high-risk bet he's making on the economy."
"He may be right," Johnson added. "I don't know how this turns out. I'm concerned about it."
Similarly, North Carolina's Sen. Thom Tillis acknowledged the threat the new duties posed to U.S. ag producers.
"We'll have to look at it and see what the response is," Tillis said, singling out turkey, pork, chicken and egg producers in his state that he said could be vulnerable to retaliation. "There's a real threat out there."
