The Washington Post is reporting today that White House aides are preparing new tariffs on most imports to be announced on April 2, laying the groundwork for an escalation in global tariffs that President Donald Trump has called “Liberation Day.”
Through his first two months in office, the president has raised tariffs on roughly, very roughly, $800 billion in imports from China, Mexico and Canada. Senior Trump advisers are now publicly pledging to create a new tariff regime that would impose new duties on trade with most countries that trade with the United States. A person familiar with internal planning, speaking on the condition of anonymity, told the Post that administration officials are preparing tariffs on “trillions” of dollars in imports, a move that would double–or more–the first wave of tariffs..
The preparations suggest Trump remains determined in his push to restructure the global trade order, despite deepening unease among allies on Capitol Hill and Wall Street and outright fury from foreign governments.
“It’s a liberation day for our country because we’re going to be getting back a lot of the wealth that we so foolishly gave up to other countries, including friend and foe,” Trump told reporters on Monday.
Trump has dubbed the next stage of his trade war “reciprocal tariffs,” arguing that other countries impose far higher trade barriers on U.S. exports than the U.S. government charges on imports. Trump has said the United States should match these tariffs with “reciprocal” duties that he believes will force other countries to lower their duties on U.S.-made products.
