US President Donald Trump on Wednesday announced his sweeping reciprocal ‘Liberation Day’ tariffs, triggering mixed reactions from across the world. The levies, ranging from 10 per cent to 49 per cent, saw Washington drawing heavy ire from the affected nations.
One of the highest tariff rates, at 49 per cent, will be levied on Cambodia, as per the charts from the White House.
Addressing the ‘Make America Wealthy Again’ press conference from the White House’s Rose Garden, Trump said that he is ‘finally putting America first’. The US president said that American taxpayers had born the brunt for a long time, emphasising that it will not happen anymore.
Trump also mentioned that all the good coming to the US will go through at least 10 per cent reciprocal tariffs. And several countries will be charged more.
The entire world, especially the ‘Dirty 15’ nations, had their attention bolted carefully at the tariff announcements, garnering a massive coverage from international media.
How global media covered Trump tariffs?
BBC reported that though Donald Trump’s politics have witnessed a significant shift over the past decades, there is one thing that has remained constant since the 1980s – his belief that tariffs are an effective way of boosting America’s economy. “Now, he’s staking his presidency on his being right,” the report mentioned. The piece was also headlined – ‘Trump’s tariffs are a longtime goal fulfilled – and his biggest gamble yet‘.
An analysis by The Guardian mentioned the Trump was finally filling in on his campaign promises to “build that wall“, not the fence along the Mexican border, instead one made up of tariffs that will surround the entire United States. It said that the immediate impact of the levies is more likely to be the surge in prices for American shoppers and “corrosive uncertainty for firms, exacerbating an economic slowdown that may already be under way”.
A report from news agency Reuters, headlined as ‘Trump tariffs pile stress on ailing world economy‘, stated that the sweeping reciprocal tariffs imposed by Donald Trump would further add to the stress of an already ailing world economy, one that has barely recovered from the post-pandemic inflation effects. It cited an executive economist to say that these tariffs have the “risk of destroying the global free trade order the United States itself has spearheaded since the Second World War”.
The New York Times reported how the sweeping tariffs on America’s trading partners has widened the rift between the US and some of its closest allies while realigning the global economic order. Along with a headline that reads ‘With Trump’s Tariffs, the Chasm Between Allies and the US Widens‘, the report also mentioned that the burden of these levies could fall the heaviest on Chinese experts.
The Wall Street Journal covered the sweeping levies with the title: ‘Trump Tariffs Aim to Bring Down Curtain on Era of Globalization‘. The piece noted that President Donald Trump’s announcement has sent a clear message to the US and foreign companies alike, that the era of globalization is over. It said that these global duties on imports “shows that the White House wants goods sold to American consumers to be built in American factories, bringing down the curtain on US support for the turbocharged globalization that powered the world economy for decades”.
