Trump’s tariff rates for other countries more than world trade data

President Donald Trump announced aggressive, distant “Reciprocal” tariff policy Wednesday, leaving many economists and American trading partners to question how the White House calculated His tariffs.

Trump’s plan has established a 10% base rate for almost every country, although many countries such as China, Vietnam and Taiwan are the subject of much higher percentages. At a ceremony in The Rose Garden on Wednesday, Trump raised a poster board that outlined the tariffs that the administration claims to be “charged” for the United States, as well as a “discount” tariffs that the United States will apply in responseS

These reciprocal tariffs are mostly about half of what the Trump administration has said that each country has been charged with the United States, the poster said China was charging a 67% tariff and that the US would apply 34% reciprocal tariff in response.

However, a report from the Cato Institute says that the average tariff rates of trading weighted weights are much lower than the Trump administration said. The report is based on the average percentages of duty from trading weighted on duty from the World Trade Organization in 2023, the latest year available.

The CATO Institute said the average tariff rate of trading weighted weight from China was 3% and not 67% of the administration said it was.

The administration said the European Union charged the US Tariff of 39%, but the CATO report said the EU average rate for 2023 was 2.7%.

In another example, the administration said India imposed a 52% tariff for the United States, but Cato found that India’s average rate for 2023 was 12%.

Many social media users this week quickly noticed that the Trump administration seems to have calculated through Dividing the trade deficit by import from a country to reach tariff rates for each of them. This is an unusual approach as it suggests that the US has joined the trade deficit of goods but ignored the trade in services.

The US Sales Representative Office in a news report said that the calculation of the combined effects of the tariff, regulatory, tax and other policies in different countries “may be proxy by calculating the rate of tariff corresponding to the movement of bilateral commercial deficits to zero.”

“If commercial deficits are resilient due to tariffs and non -territory policies and foundations, then the tariff rate corresponding to the compensation of these policies and foundations is reciprocal and fair, “USTR says in the message.