Trump Unleash­es ‘Lib­er­a­tion Day’ Tar­iffs

Posted in Election 2024  •  Published by

On Wednes­day, Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump unveiled his “Lib­er­a­tion Day” plan for imple­ment­ing rec­i­p­ro­cal tar­iffs on imports to rec­ti­fy what he views as a decades-long trade imbal­ance between the Unit­ed States and oth­er coun­tries.

At an event in the White House Rose Gar­den, Trump signed an exec­u­tive order after he declared that for­eign nations will be charged rough­ly half of what they impose with tar­iffs, includ­ing Chi­na and India as well as the Euro­pean Union.

Oth­er coun­tries will face steep­er penal­ties in accor­dance with a 10% base­line, as shown in a poster that Trump held up as he spoke. That means nations such as the Unit­ed King­dom and Brazil will face a 10% rate, match­ing the amount they charge.

“My fel­low Amer­i­cans, this is Lib­er­a­tion Day,” Trump said, “… April 2, 2025 will for­ev­er be remem­bered as the day Amer­i­can indus­try was reborn, the day America’s des­tiny was reclaimed, and the day that we began to make Amer­i­ca wealthy again.”

He added: “For decades, our coun­try has been loot­ed, pil­laged, raped, and plun­dered by nations near and far, both friend and foe alike. Amer­i­can steel work­ers, auto work­ers, farm­ers, and skilled crafts­men … they real­ly suf­fered grave­ly.”

The Dai­ly Wire’s Mary Mar­garet Olo­han, who was in atten­dance, said that peo­ple in the crowd includ­ed Vice Pres­i­dent JD Vance, Sec­re­tary of State Mar­co Rubio, Com­merce Sec­re­tary Howard Lut­nick, DHS Sec­re­tary Kristi Noem, and UAW work­ers.

Wednesday’s event marks a sig­nif­i­cant esca­la­tion in Trump’s push for tar­iffs. Talk of a loom­ing trade war has already inten­si­fied ten­sions with oth­er coun­tries, dis­rupt­ed economies around the world, and raised fears of high­er costs.

How­ev­er, ahead of “Lib­er­a­tion Day,” the Unit­ed States notched some vic­to­ries with Israel announc­ing that it would be remov­ing all tar­iffs on U.S. prod­ucts and Viet­nam cut­ting duties on U.S. imports such as cars and liqui­fied nat­ur­al gas.

“We’re not going to let any­one tell us that Amer­i­can work­ers and fam­i­lies can­not have the future that they deserve,” Trump said. “We are going to pro­duce the cars, ships, chips, air­planes, min­er­als, and med­i­cines we need right here in Amer­i­ca.”

Over the past cou­ple of months, Trump moved to imple­ment oth­er tar­iffs against Chi­na as well as Cana­da and Mex­i­co, prompt­ing them to plot retal­ia­to­ry mea­sures. He has also revealed 25% tar­iffs on for­eign cars set to begin at mid­night.

There is room for nego­ti­a­tion, as evi­denced by Trump say­ing the pre­vi­ous­ly-announced tar­iffs against Cana­da, Mex­i­co, and Chi­na would remain until they stem the flow of drugs and ille­gal immi­gra­tion. Amid talks, there have been some paus­es.