United States President Donald Trump is imposing tariffs on U.S. trading partners worldwide, his biggest assault yet on a global economic system he has long bemoaned as unfair.

Trump said Wednesday he will apply a minimum 10 per cent tariff on all exporters to the U.S. and slap additional duties on around 60 nations with the largest trade imbalances with the U.S.

“For years, hard-working American citizens were forced to sit on the sidelines as other nations got rich and powerful, much of it at our expense. But now it’s our turn to prosper,” Trump said during an event in the White House Rose Garden.

The higher “reciprocal” rates targeting nations the Trump administration labels the worst offenders are based on a government tally of the levies and non-tariff barriers those countries impose on U.S. goods. Under Trump’s plan, those countries facing higher, customized rates will be hit with a levy equal to one-half of that calculated amount.

The baseline import taxes will take effect after midnight Saturday and the higher duties will kick in at 12:01 a.m. on April 9, according to senior administration officials who discussed the plans on the condition of anonymity. Canada and Mexico already face 25 per cent tariffs tied to drug trafficking and illegal migration; those will remain in place and the U.S.’s two largest trading partners will not be subject to the new tariff regime as long as the separate tariffs are in effect. Exemptions on goods covered by the North American trade agreement Trump brokered in his first term will stay.

S&P 500 index futures sank 1.9 per cent and Nasdaq 100 futures slid 2.7 per cent as the full scope of Trump’s announcement became evident. Automaker shares traded lower virtually across the board. Ford Motor Co., General Motors Co., Stellantis NV and Tesla Inc. all declined after regular trading in New York.

China will face a 34 per cent rate, while the European Union will have a 20 per cent levy and Vietnam is seeing a 46 per cent tariff, according to White House documents. Other nations slapped with larger tariffs include Japan at 24 per cent, South Korea at 25 per cent, India at 26 per cent, Cambodia at 49 per cent and Taiwan at 32 per cent.

“This is not full reciprocal. This is kind reciprocal,” Trump said.

Mary Lovely, a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, said the tariffs Trump announced Wednesday were “much worse than we feared.” Just how they would be administered was unclear, she said, and there were “huge implications for rerouting of trade” globally.

Trump indicated he would consider lowering rates if other nations remove their trade barriers on U.S. exports.

“I say terminate your own tariffs, drop your barriers, don’t manipulate your currencies,” Trump said.

Trump declared a national emergency tied to the U.S. trade deficit, which stood at more than US$918 billion for goods and services in 2024, allowing him to use unilateral authority under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act to impose the most sweeping set of tariffs in generations. The administration is aiming to revive American manufacturing with its protectionist shift and collect hundreds of billions of dollars in revenue from the new levies to fill government coffers.

The president’s move is a historic gamble that is expected to raise the cost of trillions of dollars in goods shipped annually to the U.S. from other countries. It also could ignite a worldwide trade war, marked by tit-for-tat strikes that destabilize supply chains, stoke inflation, embolden America’s economic rivals and encourage foreign powers to form new alliances that exclude the U.S.

That dynamic presents a political problem for Trump: economic hurt from the tariffs could come quickly, while any gain in the form of a restructured U.S. economy could take years or longer to materialize.

—With assistance from Shawn Donnan.

Bloomberg.com