President Donald Trump announced reciprocal tariffs during his highly anticipated “Make America Wealthy Again” event, which he claims will restore the American dream and create jobs for American workers.
“American steel workers, auto workers, farmers, and skilled craftsmen,” Trump stated from the White House Rose Garden on Wednesday afternoon. “We have many of them with us today. They suffered greatly.
They watched in horror as foreign leaders stole our jobs, cheaters ransacked our factories, and scavengers shattered our once-beautiful American dream. We had an American dream that is rarely discussed. You did four years ago and are now. But you don’t do this very often.”
“Now it’s our turn to prosper, and in so doing, use trillions and trillions of dollars to reduce our taxes and pay down our national debt,” said the president. “And everything will happen very quickly.
With today’s action, we will finally be able to make America great again, and even greater than before. Jobs and factories will return to our country, and you can see it happening now. “We will boost our domestic industrial base.”
Trump was joined by members of his Cabinet for the highly anticipated announcement, which marked the first official presidential event held in the Rose Garden since Trump’s January inauguration.
“For nations that treat us badly, we will calculate the combined rate of all their tariffs, nonmonetary barriers and other forms of cheating. And because we are being very kind, we will charge them approximately half of what they are and have been charging us.
So the tariffs will be not a full reciprocal. I could have done that. Yes. But it would have been tough for a lot of countries,” he said.
Trump pointed to the European Union, and explained the U.S. will charge its nations a 20% tariff, compared to its 39% tariffs on the U.S. Japan will see 24% tariffs, compared to the 46% the country charges the U.S., while China will be hit with a 34% tariff, compared to the 67% it charges the U.S.
Trump listed countries that will face reciprocal tariffs, including Chile, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and others.
Other countries will face a 10% baseline tariff, Trump said.
Trump also criticized “non-tariff barriers” imposed on the United States. Non-tariff barriers are trade restrictions that limit international trade using methods other than tariffs, such as quotas or regulations.
Non-tariff barriers imposed by other countries on the United States typically target agricultural goods, such as limits on the amount of meat and fresh produce that can be exported abroad.
“For decades, the United States slashed trade barriers on other countries, while those nations placed massive tariffs on our products and created outrageous non-monetary barriers to decimate our industries,” according to Trump. “In many cases, non-monetary barriers were more severe than monetary ones.
They manipulated their currencies, subsidized their exports, stole our intellectual property, imposed exorbitant taxes that harmed our products, implemented unfair rules and technical standards, and established filthy pollution havens.”
Trump claimed that for more than a century, the United States was a tariff-backed nation, which resulted in a surge of wealth.
“From 1789 to 1913, we were a tariff-supported nation. And the United States was proportionally the wealthiest it has ever been,” he stated. “So wealthy, in fact, that in the 1880s they formed a commission to decide what to do with the vast sums of money they were amassing.
We were collecting so much money so quickly that we had no idea what to do with it. Isn’t that a good problem to have?”
Trump also stated that if nations “complain” about the tariffs, they should set up shop in the United States.
“And my answer is quite simple. If they complain, and you want your tariff rate to be zero, you should manufacture your product right here in America. Because there are no tariffs. If you build your plant and product in America. And we’ve seen companies arrive like we’ve never seen before,” he explained.
For weeks, Trump and his administration have proclaimed April 2 as “Liberation Day,” claiming that reciprocal tariffs will level the playing field for the United States after decades of unfair trade practices.
“April 2nd, 2025, will go down as one of the most important days in modern American history,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said during Tuesday’s White House press briefing.
“Our country has been one of the most open economies in the world, and we have the consumer base, hands down — the best consumer base. But too many foreign countries have their markets closed to our exports. This is fundamentally unfair.”
Trump and his administration have touted that the tariff plan will encourage business in the U.S. as industries set up shop on American soil to avoid tariffs, opening up job opportunities for U.S. workers.
During a “Fox News Sunday” interview over the weekend, White House trade adviser Peter Navarro predicted that the new tariffs would generate $600 billion per year for the United States, or $6 trillion over the next decade.
Until Trump’s announcement on Wednesday, details about his tariff plan remained hazy. The Liberation Day tariffs follow other tariffs imposed by Trump on foreign countries, such as a 25% tariff on all aluminum and steel imports and a 20% tariff on Chinese goods, which were used to help stem the flow of the deadly synthetic opioid fentanyl from China into the United States.
Trump’s previously announced 25% tariffs on Mexico and Canada are also set to take effect Wednesday, following temporary exemptions that will expire on “Liberation Day.”
Trump also announced a 25% tariff on all imported cars, which will go into effect Thursday, as well as another 25% tariff on all car parts, which will go into effect no later than May 3, and a 25% tariff on nations that buy Venezuelan oil, which went into effect Wednesday.
The trade announcements have sparked concerns about the cost of goods for Americans, which Leavitt dismissed Tuesday during a press briefing, claiming that the tariff plan “is going to work.”
When asked about concerns about Trump’s tariff advisors, Leavitt told Fox News’ Peter Doocy on Tuesday that they “will not be incorrect.” “This is going to work. And the president has a brilliant team of advisors who have been researching these issues for decades.
And we are committed to restoring America’s Golden Age and transforming the country into a manufacturing superpower.
Trump also implemented tariff trade policies during his first administration, such as 25% tariffs on steel imports and 10% tariffs on aluminum imports, which the second administration defended as evidence that tariffs are a “effective tool for achieving economic and strategic objectives,” according to a White House press release issued Wednesday ahead of the tariff announcement.
