President Trump’s new tariffs prompt global reaction
International leaders are reacting to President Donald Trump’s decision to impose new tariffs on countries accused of condoning forced labor, including Canada, China and the European Union.
U.S. consumers woke up on July 24 to the news that President Donald Trump had imposed new tariffs ranging from 10% to 12.5% on imports from more than 80 countries.
The new tariffs went into effect at the same time as the old tariffs expired. That is the 10% worldwide import tax imposed in February after the Supreme Court invalidated President Trump’s 2025 tariffs.
Economists said Americans may have forgotten about the 10% tariff. It was a relatively small amount of tax. And lately, consumers are paying more attention to rising energy prices than to their bills.
Will consumers find the new rates better than the old rates? What products will be exempt?
Here’s a quick overview.
What is the scope of the new tariffs?
Geographically speaking, they are almost universal. The new tariffs apply to 60 U.S. trading partners, according to a federal fact sheet. Collectively, these countries produce more than 99% of the goods imported from the United States. However, there are many exceptions, as detailed below.
What are the new tariff rates?
The new tariffs will be 10% or 12.5%. The size of the tariffs will depend on the stance of trading partners on forced labor, as determined by the Trump administration.
The administration said the lower 10% tariff would apply to countries that have pledged to ban imports of products made using forced labor but have not effectively enforced the ban. These partners include Canada, India, Mexico, and the United Kingdom.
The administration said the higher 12.5% tariff would apply to countries that do not ban imports made with forced labor. Those countries include China and Vietnam.
How did those countries react to the new tariffs?
The action prompted strong protests from some trading partners. China said it opposes any unilateral tariffs. Australia and Brazil said the new tariffs were unreasonable and called for them to be lifted, while Norway said they were “baseless.”
What products are exempt from customs duty?
Many products are excluded. Tariff-free items include oil, gas, fertilizers, and a wide range of imported foods, including many types of meat, nuts, seasonal fruits, and spices. Many high-tech products are exempt, as are some medical devices.
“There are billions of exemptions in this,” said James Cox, managing partner at Harris Financial Group. “At the end of the day, it’s really limited in scope.”
Cox said consumers are likely to feel the biggest impact of tariffs on clothing and other textile products.
Haven’t you already paid the customs duty?
yes. The new tariffs replace President Trump’s 10% global tariff, which expired at 12:01 a.m. ET on July 24th. President Trump enacted interim tariffs after the Supreme Court struck down the tariffs he had imposed in 2025.
“This new tariff is simply a continuation of the old tariff under new authority,” Cox said.
Has the tariff exemption changed?
The new tariffs will exempt more items, but not by a lot.
“Broadly speaking, the exemption is the same as before,” said Bernard Jarosz, chief U.S. economist at Oxford Economics. “It’s really food and energy. It’s really what matters most to consumer spending and wallets.”
So what impact will the new tariffs have?
limited.
For many trading partners, effective tariff rates rose from 10% to 12.5% overnight. But economists say the new tariffs have more exclusions than the old tariffs.
With one tariff policy expiring and another taking hold, the overall average tariff rate on U.S. imports is 11.1%, according to the Budget Lab at Yale Law School. Under the old pricing structure, average prices were slightly higher.
“This is a fairly small change,” said Ryan Nunn, director of research at Budget Labs.
So, overall, the new tariffs should cost U.S. consumers slightly less than the old tariffs.
“Tariffs will definitely go down,” Cox said.
Contributed by: Reuters
