TMTPOST -- U.S. Donald Trump on Monday indicated a range of 15% and 20% became his new standard for tariff negotiations.
Credit：Xinhua News Agency
Trump during his trip to Scotland on Monday said he is likely to impose 15% to 20 tariffs on imports from countries that have not negotiated separate trade agreements. “For the world, I would say it’ll be somewhere in the 15% to 20% range ... I just want to be nice,” Trump said. “I would say in the range of 15% to 20% probably one of those two numbers,” he added.
Trump last week suggested a 15% tariff rate is the bottom of his worldwide reciprocal levies. “We’ll have a straight, simple tariff of anywhere between 15% and 50%. A couple of — we have 50 because we haven’t been getting along with those countries too well,” Trump said at an AI summit in Washington on July 23.
Trump’s comment conflicted with his remarks a week earlier, when the president said he would send letters to more than a hundred countries, informing them of U.S. tariffs that could be set at as low as 10%.
Trump on July 15 said that the United States would soon inform a group of minor trading partners of tariffs higher than 10%. “We’ll be releasing a letter soon talking about many countries that are much smaller, where you might not do an [individual] letter,” Trump said after returning from Pittsburgh.
"We'll probably set one tariff for all of them," Trump said, adding that the tariff rate could be "a little over 10% tariff" on goods from at least 100 nations.
U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick interjected that the nations with goods being taxed at these rates would be in Africa and the Caribbean, places that generally do relatively modest levels of trade with the U.S. and would be relatively insignificant for addressing Trump's goals of reducing trade imbalances with the rest of the world.
“We’ll have well over 150 countries that we’re just going to send a notice of payment out, and the notice of payment is going to say what the tariff” rate will be, Trump told reporters at the White House on July 16. He added that countries receiving these letter were “not big countries, and they don’t do that much business.”
Trump revealed later July 16 that he would probably directly setting 10% or 15% tariffs for these countries. “We’re going to put out one number” to nearly 150 countries, and the tariff rate would “be probably 10 or 15%, we haven’t decided yet,” Trump said in an interview with Real America’s Voice broadcast.
Trump has so far released letters to heads of more than 20 U.S. trading partners, threatening new tariffs starting August 1 if no deal will be made with the U.S. ahead of the deadline. Brazil is facing 50% tariffs according to Trump’s letter, the highest tariff level among those receiving his letters.
Trump last Tuesday announced “massive” deal including a 15% reciprocal tariffs on Japan, making the Asian ally a trading partner that would face the lowest levies. The president on Sunday said the U.S. would set a baseline tariff of 15% for most European goods following his in-person meeting with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen.
Japan and the European Union pledged a large sum of investment in the U.S. under their agreements. The EU will invest $600 billion in the U.S. over the course of Trump’s term. The Japanese government has committed to invest $550 billion in the U.S. as part of a trade agreement, marking the largest foreign investment commitment ever made by any country, according to the White House. But Japan on Saturday confirmed only a small part, just 1% to 2%, of the $550 billion deal with the US will be actual investment. Japan's trade negotiator Ryosei Akazawa asid most of the money will be in the form of loans.
