The US president, Donald Trump, plans to announce this Wednesday, a day that has baptized as “day of liberation”, New tariffs against several countries, to a extent that the global economic system could shake as it has not been seen in decades and with unpredictable consequences.
The announcement will take place at 22:00 peninsular time after the closure of the Stock Exchange on Wall Street, in a great event called ‘Make America Wealthy Again’ (“Make the US rich again”), which will be held in the Rosheda of the White House, where the cherry trees are already in flower, and to which all the members of their cabinet will attend.
Tomorrow’s appointment will follow more tariffs on day 3, aimed at the automobile sector. These are the keys to not miss with the measures that Trump plans to announce in the next few days:
“Reciprocal” tariffs
Many details are still unknown about how the “reciprocal tariffs” will be implemented that Trump wants to announce this Wednesday against those countries that have barriers against US products and services, a measure that could especially affect the European Union (EU).
The idea is simple: Washington will raise its tariffs on foreign goods and services to match commercial and fiscal barriers, such as European VATwhich other nations impose on American products. “If they charge us, we charge them,” Trump repeated on several occasions.
These reciprocal tariffs could adopt different forms. For example, different levies could be established depending on the product and its country of origin, or set a tariff for all imports from a country, calculating the average of what that nation taxes American products.
One of the options Trump has on the table is the imposition of generalized tariffs of 20 % on most imports that arrive in the United Statessomething that could cause strong turbulence in financial markets and trigger reprisals of its commercial partners.
The White House has advanced that it will impose tariffs against Brazil, India, South Korea and the European Union, although it has not clarified whether it will sanction the EU as a block or if it will evaluate each country separately. What has made it clear is that “for now, there will be no exemptions.”
Tariffs to isolate Venezuela
Tomorrow, Wednesday, the tariffs with which Trump threatened at the end of March could come into force and seek to insulate Venezuela economically. Specifically, the idea would be to impose 25 % levies to countries that buy Venezuelan oil or gas.
This decision would mean a direct blow to China, the main destination of the Venezuelan crude, with purchases of about 500,000 barrels per day.
After China, the United States is the second largest oil buyer in Venezuela, with 228,000 barrels per day. However, Trump has already taken measures to reduce this flow, such as the revocation in March of the license that allowed the American oil company Chevron to operate in the Caribbean country.
Greater punishment to Mexico and Canada
Although the White House has not confirmed it, this Wednesday they could also take effect additional tariffs to Mexico and Canada, the main commercial partners of the United States.
Already on March 4, Trump imposed 25 % tariffs on imports from Canada and Mexico, But it established a month moratorium for the products of those two countries covered by the Free Trade Agreement T-MEC, which includes from agricultural products to car parts or certain types of machinery.
In this way, tomorrow, April 2, tariffs on these products could begin to be applied, which in practice would mean the death of the treaty between Mexico, the United States and Canada (T-MEC), an agreement that Trump himself negotiated in his first term (2017-2021) in replacement of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).
However, it is not yet clear if these tariffs will finally be implemented, since the president has not made comments in the last days, and on previous occasions he has already postponed its application.
25 % to the automobile sector
The automotive sector will face its own tariffs this week, When at midnight on Thursday, April 3, 25 % leaflets enter into force all imported cars to the United States.
The White House ensures that this measure will encourage national manufacturing, although it could also cause a price increase for US consumers and harm the large US cars manufacturers that depend on global supply chains.
To try to soften that impact on the US automotive industry, Trump has decided that cars made in Mexico and Canada will be temporarily exempt from that 25 %tariff, although the measure is expected to strongly affect countries such as Germany, Japan or South Korea.
