What tariffs has Donald Trump paused?

Last week Donald Trump took a match to the global market and set it on fire with his reciprocal tariffs. A week later he partially reversed the policy leaving us all with whiplash. Some countries have been given a little tariff alleviation while others have seen taxes on imported goods hiked up to insane levels.

What tariffs has Donald Trump paused?

The 90 day pause was announced on April 9 and saw a majority of the countries with higher tariffs have the tax lowered mere hours after they kicked in. But the tariffs aren’t gone completely, just the reciprocal ones which the White House calculated by looking at the trade deficit the U.S. had with each nation.

That means all countries will still receive the base 10% tariff on goods. The plans saw many countries like India, Vietnam, and all the nations in the European Union, receive higher taxes in response to the White House calculations. Meanwhile, countries like the U.K., Australia, and New Zealand were on the base 10%.

Of course, now everybody is on 10% meaning the higher countries will have much lower tariffs. This won’t really have much of an effect for those who were already on the lowest tax anyway.

However, Donald Trump has warned that he could reimpose the full rate of his reciprocal tariffs if countries are unable to strike a deal with the U.S. within the 90-day window he has offered. He also indicated that he may extend the pause. It’s also unlikely the U.S. will go below the 10% tariffs on any country anytime soon.

Which countries didn’t get a pause

Trump refused to pause tariffs on countries that retaliated. Out of all the countries which had higher tariffs prior to the pause that meant only one country would remain on the higher tariff rate: China. After announcing the reversal, the president hiked the rates on Chinese goods to 125%. China responded in kind resulting in Trump further increasing the tax to 145% on Thursday.

At the moment it doesn’t look like China will be receiving a tariff reprieve from the U.S. in the near future. The two countries now look to be headed for a full-blown trade war with neither side backing down. The rest of the world may be breathing a sigh of relief today, but things are far from over. Who knows how long this tit-for-tat taxation between the two nations will go? And what happens in 90 days if the rest of the world hasn’t struck a deal with the U.S.?