After unrealized threats of tariffs against Mexico and Canada in recent months — and ones that have been levied against China — President Donald Trump seems poised to enact broad tariffs on countries across the world, sending the global economy on a downward spiral as markets react to the haphazard and pointless trade policy from the White House.
(We wrote this on Tuesday, so Trump may have backed off these tariffs as well by the time you’re reading this.)
The initial tariff threats against our neighboring countries at 25% are nothing compared to this trade war our president is waging. China, for instance, under a nonsensical mathematical equation using trade deficits to calculate, is set to see at least 34% on all their exported goods.
The final amount will likely be higher as Trump has promised to react in kind to retaliatory tariffs from China.
Other countries across the globe — from Southeast Asia to Africa to Europe — saw tariffs enacted against them by the United States. Even two barren islands in the Antarctic, inhabited by only penguins, fell under the wrath of Trump’s tariff war, leading some to suspect the entire policy was drafted by AI.