President Donald Trump announced on Sunday that the tariffs he intends to implement in the coming days will apply to all nations, not just those with the largest trade imbalances with the United States.
He has vowed to introduce reciprocal levies on April 2, calling it a "Liberation Day," as part of his administration's efforts to counter what it considers unfair trade practices.
“You’d start with all countries, so let’s see what happens,” Trump told reporters onboard Air Force One, dashing hopes he might scale back some of the threatened levies or that they would target a select group with persistent trade imbalances.
“I haven’t heard a rumour about 15 countries, 10 or 15,” he said when asked which nations would be affected.
“Essentially all of the countries that we’re talking about. We’ve been talking about all countries, not a cutoff,” he said, without giving details.
Trump’s impending tariff measures were initially expected to focus on the 15 percent of trade partners with persistent imbalances with the United States, a group Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent referred to as the “Dirty 15.”
However, despite expanding the scope, the president maintained that his tariffs would be more “generous” than those imposed on the United States.
“The tariffs will be far more generous than those countries were to us, meaning they will be kinder than those countries were to the United States of America over the decades.
“They ripped us off like no country has ever been ripped off in history, and we’re going to be much nicer than they were to us. But it’s substantial money for the country nevertheless,” he said.
Trump has already slapped tariffs on steel and aluminum imports and additional levies on imports from China.
Tariffs on imported autos are also due to take effect on April 3.
Trump’s top trade aide Peter Navarro said the tax on auto imports could raise $100 billion a year.
“And in addition, the other tariffs are going to raise about $600 billion a year, about $6 trillion over a 10-year period,” Navarro told Fox News Sunday.
