by WorldTribune Staff, April 2, 2025 Real World News
Speaking from the White House’s Rose Garden on Wednesday, President Donald Trump announced sweeping tariffs of a minimum 10% on U.S. imports and much higher for several countries.
Liberation Day, Trump said, is “going to be a day that hopefully you’re going to look back in years to come and you’re going to say, ‘You know, he was right, this has turned out to be one of the most important days in the history of our country.’ ”
President Donald Trump shows his newly signed executive order on reciprocal tariffs. / Video ImageThe consulting firm PwC estimates that Trump’s move could increase U.S. tariff revenues from $76 billion annually to almost $697 billion.
The baseline 10% tariff on all countries goes into effect on April 5.
Larger tariffs will be charged against countries that levy higher rates on the U.S.
“We will charge them approximately half of what they are and have been charging us,” the president said. “So, the tariffs will not be a full reciprocal.”
That halved figure includes “the combined rate of all their tariffs, non-monetary barriers and other forms of cheating,” Trump said.
Trump said “jobs and factories will come roaring back” and that the reciprocal tariffs will usher in a “golden age” for the country.
“We will supercharge our domestic industrial base, we will pry open foreign markets and break down foreign trade barriers and ultimately more production at home will mean stronger competition and lower prices for consumers.”
Trump said previously announced tariffs on Canada and Mexico of 25% will remain but the 10% announced Wednesday will not be added.
The president confirmed his administration will impose 25% tariffs on auto imports starting Thursday at 12:01 a.m.
“None of our companies are allowed to go into other countries,” he said. “That’s why, effective at midnight, we will impose a 25% tariff on all foreign-made automobiles.”
The president also singled out Australian beef, saying, “they’re wonderful people and wonderful everything, but they ban American beef. Yet, we imported $3 billion of Australian beef from them just last year alone. They won’t take any of our beef. They don’t want it because they don’t want it to affect their farmers and you know what, I don’t blame them, but we’re doing the same thing, right now starting about midnight tonight.”
Prior to Trump’s speech on Wednesday, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt laid out some of the unfair trade practices the Trump Administration says America already faces.
“If you look at the unfair trade practices that we have — 50 percent from the European Union on American dairy, you have a 700 percent tariff from Japan on American rice, you have a 100 percent tariff from India on American agricultural products. You have nearly a 300 percent tariff from Canada on American butter and American cheese. This makes it virtually impossible for American products to be imported into these markets, and it has put a lot of Americans out of business and out of work over the past several decades.”
“And it’s time for a president to take historic change to do what’s right for the American people, and that’s going to take place on Wednesday,” she added.
Reversing America’s decades-long trade deficit is also a priority. The United States has recorded trade deficits every year since 1976. Last year, the U.S. goods and services trade gap surpassed $918 billion — a 17 percent increase from 2023.
In 2024, China ranked first, with the U.S. trade deficit reaching $295 billion. This was followed by the European Union ($236 billion), Mexico ($172 billion), Vietnam ($124 billion), Taiwan ($74 billion), and Japan ($69 billion).
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Liberation Day: The Rose Garden is Trump’s stage as he slaps sweeping tariffs on imports added by Editor Two on April 2, 2025
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