Trump’s reciprocal tariffs chart, explained

Donald Trump unveiled his dreaded tariff plans on April 2nd the day he labeled “Liberation Day.” Bringing a chart out at the podium the president ran through the individual tariffs that would be imposed on each country with some being much higher than others.

So what’s the deal with the differing rates? Trump calls them “reciprocal tariffs” claiming that the tax he’s putting on these countries’ imports reflects the charges that are being put on American goods. Some of the tariffs the Trump administration has implemented are as high as 50% on goods from countries like Lesotho, which, until last month it seems Trump hadn’t even heard of. While there are a few at this level, tariffs on other countries are a lot lower.

Donald Trump’s chart explained

No country was safe from the tariffs, even small islands populated only by penguins, with a minimum of 10% placed on goods from every country everyone can expect to be hit with at least the minimum amount. On Trump’s chart, a few countries can be seen with the lowest tariff including the U.K., Brazil, and Singapore, among others.

Trump explains that the higher tariffs have been implemented against countries that he deems to be giving “unfair” trade deals to the U.S., he refers to higher tariffs as well as Value Added Tax (VAT) and regulations against certain U.S. products which all factor into the numbers he arrived at for each country. For example, China has had a 34% increase put on imports — this is on top of the 20% that had already been placed on Chinese goods meaning the total on duties for China would actually be 54%.

The European Union, whom Trump described as “very tough,” were given 20% tariffs while Japan was given 24%. According to NPR, officials claimed to have used a variety of factors to come up with these reciprocal percentages. it’s not entirely clear how they came up with these numbers for each country, but deputy press secretary, Kush Desai did provide an incomprehensible formula which apparently doesn’t make any sense, so at least there’s that.

The implications of Trump’s tariffs

It’s not exactly a surprise at this point, but Trump’s plan will cause some pain for the average American consumer. Yale Budget Lab estimated that the price rise per household would cost somewhere between $2,700 and $3,400 per year.

Of course, then there’s the risk of a trade war, other countries have already announced plans to retaliate against the Trump tariffs meaning we could see a tit-for-tat exchange between the U.S. and the countries it trades with.