Updated July 12, 2025 at 9:15 AM CDT

President Trump’s trade policy has been unpredictable, and that continues with letters he’s been writing to foreign leaders informing them of the tariff rates he intends to impose on their countries’ goods on Aug. 1.

The letters represent a radical approach to trade policy, with the president setting sizable tariff rates on a growing list of countries. They also do not create policy certainty; Trump himself at one point said that Aug. 1 is “not 100% firm,” only to backtrack a day later. The letters also leave room for negotiation, telling countries that the new rates could be lowered if countries get rid of trade barriers, like their own tariffs or regulations. (For a comprehensive explanation of what makes the new letters so radical, click here. For an overview of Trump’s tariffs so far, click here.)

The letters are an outgrowth of global tariffs Trump first imposed on April 2, with rates ranging from 10% to 50%. After markets panicked, Trump walked those tariffs back, setting them at 10% across the board, in what he called a 90-day “pause.” He said that during those 90 days, he would make tariff deals with dozens of countries.

After those 90 days were up on July 9, rates would go back to their April 2 levels for any countries without new tariff deals. Thus far, Trump has only signed one deal, with the U.K. He also announced a deal with Vietnam but has released no details on it.

Below are the tariff rates Trump has announced in his letters so far, as well as the one deal he has signed and the other he has announced. It also shows how big these trading partners are, by the value of imports the U.S. bought from them last year, as well as the U.S. trade deficit or surplus with them. A trade deficit is when the U.S. imports more from a country than it exports to them. A surplus is the reverse.

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Confused about where things stand with Trump’s tariffs? Here’s a handy primer

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This week was supposed to mark the deadline for other countries to strike trade deals with the U.S. — or face tariffs of up to 49% on the goods they sell in the United States.

President Trump is still threatening sky-high import taxes, but he has pushed back the effective date to Aug. 1, sowing even more uncertainty.

Here’s an update on where Trump’s tariff policy stands, from which tariffs he has in place to which countries are currently affected.

A 10% tariff applies to just about everything the U.S. imports

Starting in April, Trump imposed a minimum 10% tariff on nearly everything the U.S. imports (with a few exceptions such as cellphones and computers), although goods from China face a higher tariff rate of 30%.

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The average tariff rate is now at the highest it has been since the 1930s. The government collected nearly $30 billion in tariff revenue during June, according to a daily tracker at the Bipartisan Policy Center. That’s roughly three times what it collected in March, before the worldwide tariffs were announced.

While foreign companies may absorb some of the cost of those tariffs, the bulk of the expense is borne by U.S. businesses and consumers.

Higher tariffs on tap for other countries — maybe

Imports from many countries initially faced higher tariffs, including 24% on goods from Japan and 49% on goods from Cambodia.

The news prompted a sharp sell-off in the stock market, and Trump quickly backtracked — announcing a 90-day pause on those higher tariffs to allow time for trade negotiations.

As that 90-day window expires this week, Trump is once again calling for significantly higher tariffs on imports from more than a dozen countries — in most cases similar to the rates announced in April.

On Tuesday, for example, Trump said he would impose a 25% tariff on goods from Japan and South Korea. Wednesday he announced tariffs of 30% on goods from Libya and Iraq, along with a 50% tariff on goods from Brazil. In each case, Trump has postponed the effective date until Aug. 1, suggesting the tariffs could be adjusted again.

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“Putting off the increased levy will no doubt bring some short-term relief for impacted business owners and purchasing managers, though it does little to alleviate the pervasive sense of uncertainty,” wrote Wells Fargo economists Shannon Grein and Tim Quinlan in a research note.

That uncertainty has been a drag on the U.S. economy, especially the manufacturing sector.

A recent report from the Institute for Supply Management said tariffs are weighing on factory orders.

“The erratic trade policy with on-again/off-again tariffs has led to price uncertainty for customers, who appear to be prepared to hold off large capital purchases until stability returns,” said one unnamed factory manager quoted in the report.

China already has a higher tariff after tit-for-tat retaliations

Goods from China are currently taxed at a minimum of 30%, which is higher than imports from other countries — but that’s still a relative bargain after Chinese products were briefly hit with tariffs as high as 145%. Some Chinese products face additional tariffs, left over from Trump’s first term in the White House.

Trump is frustrated that China sells much more to the U.S. — everything from cheap toys to fireworks — than it buys from American companies. The president has also accused China of not doing enough to crack down on the fentanyl trade.

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The European Union could also face stiffer tariffs

In April, Trump announced taxes of 20% on goods from the European Union, before rolling that back to 10%. He has yet to announce a new tariff rate for European products, but he has suggested it could be as high as 50%.

Europe has so far not imposed retaliatory tariffs on U.S. exports, but that’s likely to change if the trade war escalates.

Mexico and Canada face special scrutiny

Mexico and Canada were among the first countries, along with China, that Trump targeted with tariffs this year.

Trump initially taxed imports from Mexico and Canada at a rate of 25% (or 10% for Canadian energy), but he later exempted that tariff for goods covered under a 2020 trade deal — the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) — which Trump himself had signed during his first term as president.

The tariff relief for goods under that USMCA trade agreement was ostensibly in response to Mexico and Canada taking action to curb illegal immigration and fentanyl trafficking, although the angry reaction to tariffs from investors and businesspeople also may have played a role.

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Mexican and Canadian goods that aren’t covered by the USMCA still face a 25% import tax. This week, Trump threatened to boost the tax on imports from Canada to 35% on Aug. 1. A White House official said the exemption for goods covered under USMCA would likely remain, though no final decision has been made yet.

The U.K. and Vietnam are the only two countries with deals in place

These two trading partners, the U.K. and Vietnam, were the first to strike trade deals with the Trump administration, agreeing to increase U.S. access to their markets in exchange for limited tariffs on exports to the United States.

Trump agreed to keep tariffs on imports from the U.K. at the 10% baseline level, while imports from Vietnam will be taxed at 20%.

In April, Trump had threatened to impose tariffs as high as 46% on goods from Vietnam. Some exporters that used to produce goods in China have shifted operations to Vietnam to take advantage of lower tariffs on that country’s exports.

Separate tariffs apply to steel, aluminum and autos

Trump has imposed additional tariffs on certain goods as he tries to protect some U.S. industries.

Imported steel and aluminum are currently being taxed at a rate of 50% (except for steel and aluminum from the U.K., which is taxed at 25%), while imported cars and car parts are being taxed at 25% (except for those covered under the USMCA agreement, which are tariff-free).

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In addition to taxing raw steel and aluminum imports, the administration has added tariffs on some products made from those metals. That’s designed to avoid what happened during Trump’s first term as president, when U.S. metal manufacturers had to pay higher prices for raw materials, only to be outsold by imported finished goods.

Other tariffs on some categories may be coming

The administration is also weighing additional tariffs on specific categories of imports including pharmaceuticals, semiconductors and lumber. Trump has ordered a 50% tax on imported copper, effective Aug. 1.

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But tariffs also face a legal challenge

In ordering many of the tariffs listed above, Trump relied on a 1977 statute called the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA).

Several states and businesses have challenged those tariffs, saying IEEPA doesn’t give the president power to impose sweeping import taxes in response to a long-running U.S. trade deficit.

A specialty federal trade court agreed in May and struck down the tariffs. However, they’ve been allowed to remain in effect as the administration pursues an appeal.

If the courts ultimately rule against Trump’s worldwide tariffs under IEEPA, he would still have the power under other statutes to impose tariffs on particular goods like steel and aluminum.

Trump announces 30% tariffs against EU, Mexico to begin August 1

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BRIDGEWATER, New Jersey — President Donald Trump on Saturday announced he’s levying tariffs of 30% against the European Union and Mexico starting August 1.

Trump announced the planned tariffs on two of the United States’ biggest trade partners in letters posted to his social media account. They are part of an announcement blitz by Trump of new tariffs with allies and foes alike, a bedrock of his 2024 campaign that he said would set the foundation for reviving a U.S. economy that he claims has been ripped off by other nations for decades.

In his letter to Mexico’s leader, Trump acknowledged that the country has been helpful in stemming the flow of undocumented migrants and fentanyl into the United States. But he said the country has not done enough to stop North America from turning into a “Narco-Trafficking Playground.”

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“Mexico has been helping me secure the border, BUT, what Mexico has done, is not enough,” Trump added.

Trump in his letter to the European Union said that the U.S. trade deficit was a national security threat.

“We have had years to discuss our Trading Relationship with The European Union, and we have concluded we must move away from these long-term, large, and persistent, Trade Deficits, engendered by your Tariff, and Non-Tariff, Policies, and Trade Barriers,” Trump wrote in the letter to the EU. “Our relationship has been, unfortunately, far from Reciprocal.”

EU responds

European Union Commission President Ursula von der Leyen responded by noting the bloc’s “commitment to dialogue, stability, and a constructive transatlantic partnership.”

“At the same time, we will take all necessary steps to safeguard EU interests, including the adoption of proportionate countermeasures if required,” von der Leyen said in a statement.

Trump, as he has in previous letters, warned that his administration would further raise tariffs if the EU attempts to hike its own tariffs on the United States.

With the reciprocal tariffs, Trump is effectively blowing up the rules governing world trade. For decades, the United States and most other countries abided by tariff rates set through a series of complex negotiations known as the Uruguay round. Countries could set their own tariffs – but under the “most favored nation” approach, they couldn’t charge one country more than they charged another.

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The Italian government said on Saturday it continues to “closely monitor” the ongoing trade negotiations between the European Union and the United States, fully supporting the EU Commission’s efforts.

“We trust in the goodwill of all stakeholders to reach a fair agreement that can strengthen the West as a whole, given that—particularly in the current scenario—it would make no sense to trigger a trade war between the two sides of the Atlantic,” Premier Giorgia Meloni’s office said in a statement.

The Mexico tariff, if it goes into effect, could replace the 25% tariffs on Mexican goods that do not comply with the existing U.S.-Mexico-Canada free trade agreement.

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Trump’s letter did not address if USMCA-compliant goods would still be exempt from the Mexico tariffs after Aug. 1, as the White House said would be the case with Canada. Trump sent a letter to Canada earlier this week threatening a 35% tariff hike.

Higher tariffs had been suspended

With Saturday’s letters, Trump has now issued tariff conditions on 24 countries and the 27-member European Union.

The European Union’s chief trade negotiator said earlier this week that a trade deal to avert higher tariffs on European goods imported to the U.S. could be reached “even in the coming days.” Maroš Šefčovič told EU lawmakers in Strasbourg, France on Wednesday that the EU had been spared the increased tariffs contained in the letters Trump sent on Monday, and that an extension of talks would provide “additional space to reach a satisfactory conclusion.”

The bloc collectively sells more to the U.S. than any other country. U.S. goods imports from the EU topped $553 billion in 2022, according to the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative.

Trump on April 2 proposed a 20% tariff for EU goods and then threatened to raise that to 50% after negotiations did not move as fast as he would have liked. Sefcovic did not mention any tariff figures.

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The higher tariffs as well as any EU retaliation had been suspended as the two sides negotiate. However the base rate of 10% for most trade partners as well as higher rates of 25% on autos and 50% on steel and aluminum had gone into effect.

Douglas Holtz-Eakin, a former Congressional Budget Office director and president of the center-right American Action Forum, said the letters were evidence that serious trade talks were not taking place over the past three months. He stressed that nations were instead talking amongst themselves about how to minimize their own exposure to the U.S. economy and Trump.

“They’re spending time talking to each other about what the future is going to look like, and we’re left out,” Holtz-Eakin said.

He added that Trump was using the letters to demand attention, but, “In the end, these are letters to other countries about taxes he’s going to levy on his citizens.”

Potential impact is vast

If the tariffs do indeed take effect, the potential impact on Europe could be vast.

The value of EU-U.S. trade in goods and services amounted to 1.7 trillion euros ($2 trillion) in 2024, or an average of 4.6 billion euros a day, according to EU statistics agency Eurostat

Europe’s biggest exports to the U.S. were pharmaceuticals, cars, aircraft, chemicals, medical instruments and wine and spirits.

Trump has complained about the EU’s 198 billion-euro trade surplus in goods, which shows Americans buy more goods from European businesses than the other way around.

However, American companies fill some of the gap by outselling the EU when it comes to services such as cloud computing, travel bookings, and legal and financial services.

The U.S. services surplus took the nation’s trade deficit with the EU down to 50 billion euros ($59 billion), which represents less than 3% of overall U.S.-EU trade.

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Before Trump returned to office, the U.S. and the EU maintained a generally cooperative trade relationship and low tariff levels on both sides. The U.S. rate averaged 1.47% for European goods, while the EU’s averaged 1.35% for American products.

Everything to know about Trump’s tariff letters — and why it’s a radical approach

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President Trump this week has been firing off letters to global leaders that threaten new, high tariff rates and also announcing them via social media — an approach that represents a radical and potentially risky approach to trade.

It began Monday with two letters — to the leaders of Japan and South Korea — posted to Trump’s Truth Social account, informing them that he plans to impose new tariffs on their exports to the U.S. beginning Aug. 1. Twelve more tariff threat letters went up that day, followed by an executive order that officially pushes back a July 9 deadline for tariff deals he set in the spring to Aug. 1. On Wednesday, he posted more letters — to countries from which the U.S. buys relatively little. Thursday night, he added a letter to Canada. (For the full list of the new tariff rates Trump has announced so far, click here.)

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Trump and his economic officials said months ago that he would make potentially dozens of tariff deals before July 9. But since then, they have only struck two such deals — with the UK and Vietnam. Tuesday, Trump tried to rebrand his new letters as tariff deals.

“A letter means a deal,” Trump said in an open Cabinet meeting. The administration has said tariff negotiations are underway with multiple countries. But now, it is issuing a standard letter to multiple countries, listing specific new tariff rates for each one.

“We can’t meet with 200 countries. We have a few trusted people that know what they’re doing, that are doing a good job, but you can’t do it. You have to do it in a more general way. But it’s a very good way. It’s a better way. It’s a more powerful way,” Trump said.

The letters are the latest example of how Trump has uprooted U.S. trade policy by aggressively using tariffs, approaching trade as a zero-sum game.

Since World War II, the U.S. had generally moved away from tariffing and towards free trade agreements such as the North American Free Trade Agreement or bilateral agreements with individual countries, says Douglas Irwin, an economics professor at Dartmouth College. The U.S. would put up trade barriers only in specific instances, he said.

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“We’d protect certain sectors — when there’s dumping, when there’s a national security concern, when there’s a downturn in the industry,” Irwin said. “That’s been the exception, not the rule, but Trump has turned that on its head.”

Trump prefers making bilateral deals on tariff rates — or outright imposing tariffs without dealmaking — over the multilateral trade deals that past administrations pursued, such as the Trans Pacific Partnership. That trade agreement would have included 12 Asia-Pacific countries. It was complex, the result of nearly a decade of negotiation — talks started in 2008, in the George W. Bush administration and continued through Barack Obama’s two terms to when Trump took office in 2017 and pulled the U.S. out of TPP talks.

Multilateral trade deals can cover a range of complicated topics, such as labor and environmental standards. Trump’s approach to trade via tariffs is much simpler — he focuses on tariff rates and trade deficits both in negotiations and in these letters.

As a result, Trump’s tariffs are very different from trade deals such as TPP, NAFTA, and USMCA — the last of which was negotiated in Trump’s first term.

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According to Trump, the potential benefits of these tariffs include reducing other countries’ trade barriers, including tariffs and other regulations, giving U.S. exporters more foreign consumers. The president has also said an ultimate goal of these tariffs is to boost U.S. manufacturing, though many economists are skeptical about how successful that goal might be.

Meanwhile, the costs of tariffs are real, and will be paid upfront by U.S. companies, which will likely pass some of those costs on to consumers.

The deal Trump announced with Vietnam last week, for example, sets tariff rates at 20% for Vietnamese goods. That is lower than the 46% Trump imposed on April 2, but it is also far higher than where tariffs were prior to Trump taking office. Back then, average U.S. tariffs on Vietnamese goods were around 3%. That means the cost for U.S. consumers of goods from Vietnam — which include machinery, appliances, clothing, and shoes — may soon be markedly more expensive than they have been.

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In addition, bilateral tariff deals may not be the most efficient way to achieve Trump’s goals.

“U.S.-Vietnam trade restrictions would today be very, very low if Trump hadn’t walked away from TPP in 2017,” said Scott Lincicome, an expert in trade at the libertarian think tank Cato Institute.

What Trump has announced so far

In nearly all of the letters posted to social media, Trump writes that “the United States of America has agreed to continue working with” the countries, “despite having a significant Trade Deficit with your great Country.” He later added, “Our relationship has been, unfortunately, far from Reciprocal,” as justification for the new tariff rates.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Monday that more letters will be released in the following days. Most of the letters posted so far are all nearly identical to each other, aside from country names and tariff rates.

He broke format in a letter to the president of Brazil on Wednesday that says he plans to put a 50% tariff on Brazilian products, which is needed in part, Trump writes, “to rectify the grave injustices of the current regime.” He pointed to what he called a “Witch Hunt” against former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, who is on trial for allegations that he and allies planned a coup in an attempt to stay in power.

His Thursday letter to Canada, meanwhile, left broad uncertainty in terms of how those tariffs would be implemented. Trump threatened at 35% tariff on Canada, but an administration official later clarified that that would “most likely” apply only to goods that are not compliant with the USMCA trade agreement. Around 60% of Canadian imports prior to Trump’s recent tariffs were not covered by USMCA. However, the official added that there are “no final decisions” yet from President Trump.

The White House has clarified that the new tariffs will not be imposed in addition to the various tariffs Trump has imposed on broad classes of goods. For example, steel and aluminum — currently tariffed worldwide at 50% — from any of these countries will still be tariffed at 50%. Amid the slew of letters and announced tariffs directed at individual countries, the president also announced a new 50% tariff on copper Wednesday on Truth Social, citing his desire to rebuild the copper industry in the U.S.

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While Trump often frames tariffs as being paid by other countries — in the South Korea letter, he says that “we will charge Korea” a 25% tariff — that is not the case. Tariffs are taxes paid to the U.S. government by companies in the U.S. for imported goods or components. As a result, the cost of tariffs is often passed on to consumers in the form of higher prices.

Trump has regularly said that these rates were meant as retaliation against other countries’ protectionist measures.

In his letters, Trump added that goods that are transshipped — meaning they are made elsewhere but shipped through any of the countries — will be subject to higher tariffs. And should either country decide to impose a reciprocal tariff, Trump said “whatever the number you choose to raise them by, will be added onto the 25% tariff that we charge.”

However, Trump informed the countries that their goods could avoid these new tariff rates if their countries’ companies choose to manufacture their goods in the U.S.

But beyond moving factories to the U.S., Trump’s form letters raise the question of what, if anything, other countries might be able to do to convince Trump to lower his tariffs.

“If you look at all the letters that were issued yesterday, they were extremely broad brush,” said Irwin at Dartmouth. “They don’t say, ‘We don’t like this one aspect of what you’re doing. Get rid of it or we’ll retaliate.’ ”

A brief history of Trump’s recent tariff talk

The new tariff letters are the result of months of uncertainty, stemming from an April 2 executive order in which Trump imposed tariffs on nearly every country worldwide. Trump announced those tariffs with a Rose Garden event, calling April 2 “Liberation Day.” The new taxes included high rates on goods from some of America’s biggest trading partners, such as Vietnam and Japan.

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A week later, after stock markets plummeted and economists warned of dire consequences, Trump announced he was lowering the tariffs to 10% for 90 days. After that “pause,” as he called it, he set tariffs to jump back to those “Liberation Day” levels on Wednesday, July 9.

In the interim, the president repeatedly said he would make tariff deals with individual countries before July 9, at one point promising “90 deals in 90 days.” Two deals have been announced to date, however, with the UK in early June and with Vietnam on July 2.

Most of the newly announced tariff rates do not differ widely from where Trump set those countries’ rates on April 2. The biggest difference is with Cambodia, which faced a tariff of 49% after Trump’s April 2 announcement. The new rate is 36%.

A look at the new tariff rates outlined in Trump’s letters to global leaders

The new tariff rates included in the letters so far are: