US President Donald Trump on Wednesday suggested that he would not go below 15 percent as he sets so-called “reciprocal tariff” rates ahead of a deadline on Friday next week, an indication that the floor for the increased levies was rising.
“We’ll have a straight, simple tariff of anywhere between 15 percent and 50 percent,” Trump said at an artificial intelligence (AI) summit in Washington. “A couple of — we have 50 because we haven’t been getting along with those countries too well.”
Trump’s comment declaring that the tariffs would begin at 15 percent represented the latest twist in his effort to impose duties on nearly every US trading partner, and the latest indication that he was looking to more aggressively impose the levies on exports from countries outside the small group that so far has been able to broker trade frameworks with Washington.
Photo: AFP
Trump earlier this month said that more than 150 countries would receive a letter including a tariff rate of “probably 10 or 15 percent, we haven’t decided yet.”
Meanwhile US Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick told CBS News on Sunday that small countries, including “the Latin American countries, the Caribbean countries, many countries in Africa” would have a baseline tariff of 10 percent.
On Tuesday, Trump announced he was reducing a threatened 25 percent tariff on Japan to 15 percent in exchange for the country removing restrictions on some US products, as well as offering to back a US$550 billion investment fund.
The White House has also discussed a similar fund with South Korea, a nation also focused on reaching a 15 percent rate, including on autos, people familiar with the matter said.
The Philippines is aiming to bring down its own tariff rate to the 15 percent level from the current 19 percent, Philippine Ambassador to the US Jose Manuel Romualdez said.
Meanwhile, officials in Vietnam are weighing the likely cost of their deal.
Hanoi estimates its exports to the US could decline by as much as one-third if higher tariffs announced by Trump take effect, an internal government assessment showed.
Other nations, including India and members of the EU, are still pushing for an agreement before the heightened tariffs go into effect.
Trump on Wednesday said that he would “have a very, very simple tariff for some of the countries,” because there were so many nations that “you can’t negotiate deals with everyone.”
He said talks with the EU were “serious.”
“If they agree to open up the union to American businesses, then we will let them pay a lower tariff,” Trump said.
The EU and the US appear to be heading toward a possible trade deal, said EU diplomats, which would result in a broad 15 percent tariff on EU goods imported into the US, mirroring a framework agreement Washington struck with Japan.
EU member countries yesterday voted to approve countertariffs on 93 billion euros (US$109 billion) of US goods, which could be imposed should the bloc fail to reach a trade deal with Washington, EU diplomats said.
The European Commission on Wednesday said that its primary focus was to achieve a negotiated outcome with Washington to avert the 30 percent tariffs that Trump has said he would apply on Friday next week.
Additional reporting by Reuters
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