Baseline tariffs affect around $3 trillion in imports.
The first part of President Donald Trump’s sweeping tariff agenda came into effect at 12:01am on April 5th.
The White House measures will affect the $3 trillion in goods imported by the US each year.
Trump announced details of his tariff plans at the “American Wealthy Again” event at the White House Rose Garden on April 2nd, vowing to cancel decades of trade deficits and unfair practices in global commerce.
“For decades, our country has been plundered, plundered and plundered by countries nearby, both friends and enemies,” the president said in a speech before an audience of auto workers, artisans, farmers, steel workers and cabinet members.
“They saw in agony as foreign leaders stole our work, foreign con artists plundered our factories, and foreign scavengers tore their once beautiful American dreams apart.”
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The second set of trade policy measures consists of strong mutual tariffs in countries where the United States has a sustained trade deficit and maintains more restrictive financial and non-monetary trade barriers. These import duties reach 50% and apply to a large number of countries, including Vietnam (46%), China (34%), Taiwan (32%), India (26%) and Japan (24%).
“Our country and its taxpayers have been torn apart for over 50 years, and that’s not going to happen anymore,” Trump said.
Certain goods such as automobiles, aluminum, steel, etc. are exempt from the new tariff regime as they are already subject to Section 232 duties.
“China is urging the US to immediately cancel unilateral tariff measures, pay respect and resolve trade differences through consultations in a mutually beneficial way,” the ministry said in a statement.
In response to Beijing’s tariffs, Trump wrote that the Chinese administration had “paniced” and “one thing they can’t afford to do.”
Others, including the European Union and Canada, have also vowed to set up measures.
Both Canada and Mexico were particularly absent from both lists. North American neighbours still face a tariff regime of 25% due to illegal drugs and threats surrounding illegal immigration.
“Negotiations with trading partners will likely be somewhat lower in ‘mutual’ rates than announced this week,” Goldman Economist wrote in a note emailed to the Epoch Times.
“However, the prospects for escalation after retaliation tariffs and the high possibility of further sector tariffs suggest that effective US tariff rates could rise above the 15% points economists had previously anticipated.”
President Trump held the charts on April 2, 2025, making mutual tariff comments at an event entitled Make America Wealthy Again. Brendan Smialowski/AFP via Getty Images
The White House continues on with the “Big One” (a reference when the president first teased mutual tariffs in February), but the White House shows that more collections are coming. Senior administrators say Trump is poised to introduce tariffs targeting wood, medicines and semiconductors.
United Nations Trade Development (UNCTAD) officials recently said US tariffs hurt the most vulnerable and poor people.
“Trade should not be another source of instability, it should help develop and grow globally,” Unctad Secretary General Rebeca Grynspan said, adding that today’s climate requires “not escalation” cooperation.
Wall Street on the edge
Since the president’s tariff announcement, financial markets have been in turbulent, with one index slipping into the bear market.
Blue-Chip Dow Jones Industrial Average fell more than 2,200 points to close the noisy trading week. The broader S&P 500 and more tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite Index fell nearly 6% to close the April 4 session. The Russell 2000, an index made up of small-caps, entered the bear market with over 4% of its intake.
The US Treasury Department has reduced it as investors sought shelter with traditional safe haven assets. The benchmark 10-year yield fell to 4%, the lowest since October.
“President Trump’s enactment of key new tariffs has increased uncertainty in the global market and has had a significant impact on sectors and businesses that rely heavily on international trade and complex supply chains,” Matt Burdett, equity director at Thornburg Investment Management, said in a memo in the Epoch Times.
Burdet said this is likely to be the beginning of a wider negotiation rather than a “decisive policy endpoint.”
Speaking to an Air Force reporter on April 3, Trump said tariffs put the US in the driver’s seat.
“Taxes give us great power to negotiate. Every country calls us,” Trump said.
“If someone says we’re going to give you something so amazing as long as they give us something good.”
According to the president, he has already spoken with Lam, the general secretary of the Communist Party of Vietnam. Trump wrote about the true society and said he hopes to reduce tariffs on US goods to zero if the Vietnamese government can reach an agreement with the US.
Trump said corporate America is indifferent to tariffs.
