So yesterday, everyone was so confused on how Trump came to that percentage of reciprocal tariffs that he charged to 185 countries. Because some of the numbers were crazy, like 50%. But after some people started doing the math, turns out, it might be a little bit more simple than we thought. Even the freaking White House account got the readers added context tag.
So it turns out that these percentages aren’t foreign tariffs. They simply show how much more the U.S. imports from a country than exports to it. So for example, if the U.S. imports $100 billion of goods from a country, but only exports $60 billion to it, that trade deficit would be $40 billion. So the calculation that they used is the $100 billion minus $60 billion equals $40 billion. Then $40 billion divided by $100 billion, and there you go. 40% tariffs charged to that country.
Another couple of interesting points was the 10% tariffs charged to the McDonald’s and Heard Islands, where only penguins live. Now the speculation for this is that they’ve either done this because they’re Australian territory, or the fact that people have started setting up shell companies on those islands. Also in his speech, Trump officially acknowledged Taiwan as a country. In reference to J.D. Vance, he said, he’s gaining a lot of confidence, isn’t he?
And then a couple of surprising countries that were spared from Trump’s tariffs, which were there only a few, were Russia and North Korea. You see, Trump says that he wants America to become self-reliant and drive businesses and manufacturing back to the country. But to do this, he not only has to change consumer habits to buy more Americans but also make it make sense for corporations and factories to operate within America rather than abroad. Tariffs are his chosen way of trying to do this.
But investors in the stock market absolutely hate it. In fact, the market tanked so hard that as of recording, we are only 1.3% away from having to halt all trading. Now Trump’s rebuttal to this is that if you want to make any long-term plans or change for the country, you can’t keep on thinking about the short-term fluctuations of the stock market. But ultimately, what do you guys think? Do you trust Trump for the long term or is his tariff plan going to fail miserably? Let me know.
