President Donald Trump is making a major tariff announcement on what the White House has dubbed "Liberation Day."
UPDATE | Trump announces baseline 10% tariff on imports for all US trade partners
Trump is holding a "Make America Wealthy Again" event in the Rose Garden, with attendees including American workers, congressional members, cabinet members and trade and economic officials.
The tariffs are expected to take effect immediately, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Tuesday, though the administration has not publicly announced specifics.
The broad decisions had been made, but details were being fine-tuned ahead of the speech, according to an administration official. Trump had made a determination, and spent time with his trade and tariff team Tuesday “perfecting it,” according to Leavitt.
"They're not going to be wrong. It is going to work. And the president has a brilliant team of advisers who have been studying these issues for decades. And we are focused on restoring the golden age of America and making America manufacturing superpower,” Leavitt said.
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Trump’s trade policy has sought to address what the administration views as unfair trade with other nations, boost manufacturing and raise revenue.
Senior officials are in alignment on why Trump wants to pursue tariffs, though decisions were still being made at last check, according to a source familiar with the administration’s thinking. Several considerations have been on the table, including reciprocal rates by country and a 20 percent universal rate, according to another source familiar with the administration’s thinking.
Starting in the early days of his second term in office, Trump had been presented different options his trade team had put together, and weighing them closely, an official noted at that time. More recently, Trump has indicated potential for leniency.
“The tariffs will be far more generous than those countries were to us, meaning they will be kinder than those countries were to the United States of America over the decades. They ripped us off like no country has ever been ripped off in history and we're going to be much nicer than they were to us. But it's substantial money for the country nevertheless,” Trump said Sunday.
"Essentially all of the countries that we're talking about, yeah. We'd be talking about all countries that — not a cut off. And if you look at the history and you look at what's happened,” Trump added.
The administration has held conversations with other countries. While Leavitt noted Trump is open to calls, she also said, “there's one country the President cares most about, and it's the United States of America.”
Over the weekend Trump indicated deals are possible but would happen later.
"They want to make deals. It's possible if we can get something for the deal. But, you know, we've been taken advantage of for 40 years, maybe more, and it's just not going to happen any more. But yeah, I'm certainly open to that. If we can do something where we get something for it,” Trump said last Friday.
The administration though has been presented with concerns about the ability for a country specific reciprocal policy to achieve the administration’s tax goals, though, according to a source familiar with the administration’s thinking.
Other countries, however, have indicated they are preparing for retaliatory responses or reserve the right to respond, including Canada, Mexico, the UK, the EU, China and Japan.
“These tariffs he’s proposing are enormous so we should expect the retaliation to be enormous,” said Brendan Duke, senior director of federal budget policy at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, and formerly on the National Economic Council under the Biden Administration.
In addition to reciprocal tariffs, auto tariffs are also expected to take effect Tuesday. Steel and aluminum tariffs took effect last month. Trump has indicated he’d like to pursue tariffs on pharmaceuticals and lumber. It’s unclear if pauses in fentanyl related tariffs against Canada and Mexico would be extended. At last check over the weekend, no final decisions had been made on additional sectoral tariffs or fentanyl related tariffs, according to an administration official.
It’s uncharted territory, according to one Washington trade expert, who expects the tariffs to be more broad and comprehensive than was believed just several days ago.
Some are concerned about the impact on consumers. Duke believes the tariffs will place a larger burden of the share on low and middle income families.
“I think fundamentally families are going to face higher costs. Businesses have made clear they plan on raising prices in reaction to these enormous tariffs he’s talking about,” said Duke.
“The Biden Administration faced a lot of political heat because of rising prices and this is just pouring gasoline on that fire of too high a prices,” he added.
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Despite swings in the stock market and concerns from some economists the tariffs will amount to a tax on consumers, the White House has maintained that the market is a “snapshot in time.” When pressed on concerns on Wall Street and Main Street, the White House said the president takes them seriously.
"And he's addressing them every single day. And tomorrow's announcement is to protect future generations of the senior citizens you mentioned. It's for their kids and their grandkids to ensure that there are jobs here in the United States of America for their children to live the American dream, just like they presumably did,” Leavitt said.
“The disconnect is because in the first Trump administration, there were tariffs imposed on China in a more limited way, as well as steel and aluminum tariffs. And there is some evidence that if you impose sector specific or more targeted tariffs, you can do that without necessarily under cutting the financial markets and the economy. But for something broader based, it's very unclear,” said Brightbill.
The economic impact isn’t known until more is known about how broad the tariffs are, according to Tim Brightbill, co-chair of Wiley Rein’s International Trade Practice, who underscored the importance of certainty in the announcement.
“So many of our clients and businesses just want to know what's coming. They're trying to prepare, but it's hard to prepare when you don't know the size and scope of the tariffs that are going to be announced,” he said.
