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No more, no less: Donald Trump explained what reciprocal tariffs are.
After Donald Trump's tariff war with Canada, China, and Mexico in the first three weeks of his administration, Trump announced reciprocal tariffs Thursday. As Trump announced the reciprocal tariffs, he explained that for purposes of fairness, the United States will impose the same tariff on each country whatever they charge, not more, not less. "They charge us a tax or tariff and we charge them the exact tax or tariff. Very simple," Trump said.
"Nobody knows what that number is unless you go by the individual country, you can see what it is. If you go to individual country and see what they are charging us, in almost all cases, they are charging us more than what er charge them. Those days are over," Trump explained.
Reciprocal tariff: 'It's the golden rule'
A day ago, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said that reciprocal tariffs would be announced soon and before Trump's meeting with Narendra Modi. Explaining the logic of reciprocal tariff, Leavitt said it's very simple, the golden rule that was taught in school. “It’s the golden rule, which we all learned when we were growing up in school: treat others the way you want to be treated. And far too many nations around this world have been ripping off the United States of America for far too long. And that’s why the President believes this will be a great policy that will benefit American workers and improve our national security.”
All the top 15 trading partners of the US have higher average tariff rates than the US. The European Union's autos tariff is, for example, 10 per cent -- four times the 2.5 per cent of the US passenger car rate
Peter Navarro, Trump’s top trade advisor in the White House told CNN that the biggest deficit cases will be picked up -- meaning the countries which tax the US a lot more than what the US taxes them. “What’s going to happen is we are going to look at all of our trading partners, starting with the ones with which we run the biggest deficits, find out if they are cheating the American people, and if they are, we are going to take measures to correct that wrong," Navarro said.
