President Donald Trump on Wednesday made good on his promise to impose severe tariffs on much of the world’s imports, rolling out a plan that is likely to shock both U.S. trading partners and global financial markets.
On a self-proclaimed “Liberation Day,” the president announced baseline 10% tariffs on imported goods and much steeper rates for dozens of countries that have tariffs on U.S. goods.
“This is one of the most important days, in my opinion, in American history. It’s our declaration of economic independence,” Trump said to aides and union members sporting ‘Make America Great Again’ hats in the Rose Garden. “Our country and its taxpayers have been ripped off for more than 50 years, but it is not going to happen anymore.”
The Rose Garden crowd applauded the president as he unveiled each new levy, revealing a program of reciprocal tariffs that is likely to upend decades of trade rules that have governed relationships between countries, friends and foes alike.
Trump momentarily held up a chart to read off one by one what each country charges the U.S. and in return, what the U.S. will charge back in what Trump called a “discount” and “kind” reciprocal tariff.
These rates include 34% on China; 20% on the European Union; 46% on Vietnam; 32% on Taiwan; 24% on Japan; 26% on India; 25% on South Korea; and 17% on Israel.
At least some of those rates will be atop existing tariffs. A White House official confirmed after the Rose Garden event that the rate on China will effectively be 54% after April 9, when factoring an existing 20% rate.
“We’re going to take care of our people first. I’m sorry to say,” Trump said in the Rose Garden.
U.S. stock futures took a sharp downturn after the tariff announcement. The market has been somewhat volatile throughout Trump’s term as he’s gone back and forth on various tariffs and kept investors in a cloud of uncertainty.
The tariffs, instituted under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, will have a baseline rate of 10% on all imported foreign goods, with specific and higher reciprocal rates for countries with particular trade practices deemed unacceptable to the administration.
American importers typically pay tariff fees for products from other countries, rather than foreign suppliers. Companies often pass higher costs from tariffs on to consumers.
Trump, in his remarks, called out many countries specifically — like India, Vietnam, Thailand, the European Union, South Korea and Japan — as having egregiously imbalanced trade deficits with the U.S.
“In many cases, the friend is worse than the foe, in terms of trade,” he said.
A White House official told NOTUS that Russia is not on this list because sanctions from the Ukraine war have already rendered trade between the two countries as too low to significantly tariff. Trade between both countries was around $3.5 billion in 2024, down dramatically from $35 billion in 2021, according to the Bureau of Industry and Security. Other countries left off the list included North Korea and Cuba, which also receive heavy tariffs.
On a chilly D.C. day, the president went off script and topic multiple times during his 49-minute remarks. He shouted out members of the crowd, including cabinet secretaries and union members. He frequently criticized the Biden administration and talked about his electoral win. The celebration, likely the last time an event is held in the Rose Garden before the grass is turned into a patio, felt at times like a campaign rally for a president who doesn’t often get such an audience now in office.
Reporters came back to the briefing room after the event to large printouts of the list, which was initially passed out during the event, set up for all to see.
Senior officials indicated in a press call prior to the announcement that Canada and Mexico will continue to be tariffed under the national emergency on fentanyl and migration, including an extension of the United States–Mexico–Canada Agreement tariff exemptions and keeping the 25% tariff on non-USMCA-compliant goods. Canada and Mexico also weren’t on the large poster with higher tariff levies or in printed pages handed to reporters attending the speech.
Trump did, nonetheless, hit out at Canadian and Mexican tariffs in his speech. “We subsidize a lot of countries and keep them going and keep them in business. In the case of Mexico, it’s $300 billion a year. In the case of Canada, it’s close to $200 billion a year. And I say, why are we doing this?” he said.
Senior administration officials told reporters that higher rates on the “worst offenders” were nations with high tariffs on American goods, “value added taxes that distort trade and advantage their exporters over ours, technical barriers to trade, sanitary and phytosanitary standards that are not based on real time, all of these things.”
Those higher rates, however, aren’t designed to be equal and opposite reciprocal tariffs. “The president is lenient, and he wants to be kind to the world,” one of the officials said before the rollout.
Each of the reciprocal tariffs were “half of the actual calculation,” a figure generated by the Council of Economic Advisers, the officials said. “The model they use is based on the concept that the trade deficit that we have with any given country is the sum of all the unfair trade practices, the sum of all cheating,” senior administration officials said.
There will also be a provision in the order Trump signed that would allow for the president to respond to any retaliation based on these tariffs.
Asked by a reporter on the preview call if countries could negotiate, an official said, “This is not a negotiation. It’s a national emergency. And any country that thinks that they can simply make an announcement promising to lower some tariffs is ignoring the big, central problem of their massive nontariff barriers and the institutionalization in their trade model to cheat America.”
—
This story has been updated with more detail on U.S. trade relationships.
Nuha Dolby is a NOTUS reporter and an Allbritton Journalism Institute fellow. Jasmine Wright and Haley Byrd Wilt are reporters at NOTUS.