The Trump administration’s ongoing trade wars are set to culminate this Wednesday, when President Donald Trump unveils his long-awaited reciprocal tariffs to match those charged on U.S. products.
Dubbed “Liberation Day” by him, Trump claims the duties will free the U.S. from dependence on foreign goods. However, little remains known on how they’ll be implemented.
In comments made on Sunday, Trump corrected a widely-held assumption that the tariffs would be imposed on what Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent singled out as the “Dirty 15” in a FOX Business interview, referring to the percentage of nations that have the largest trade imbalances with the U.S.
“You’d start with all countries,” said the president to reporters while aboard Air Force One. “New tariffs will be far more generous than those countries were to us.”
Meanwhile, a 25% tariff on imported vehicles is still slotted to take effect on Thursday, with duties on auto parts to follow shortly after, in an aim to move all auto manufacturing back to the U.S.
Some analysts say that a major supply chain shift would take years to instate — years American companies would spend paying tariffs to offset the effects and domestic consumers would spend paying hiked-up costs on vehicles.
“Most likely prices are going to go up by a few thousand dollars at least, but it would vary from brand to brand and maybe even from model to model,” said Brian Moody, executive editor of the Kelley Blue Book, a vehicle valuation and research company.
Economist Michael Froman, president of the Council on Foreign Relations, predicts that cars won’t be the only goods to take the brunt of the impact, warning that the tariffs will raise prices and lower demand across the board.
“You can’t overrule the laws of economics with an executive order any more than you can overrule the laws of gravity,” said Froman. “When you combine that lesser demand with what we’re seeing in the decline of consumer investor confidence, you could well see a slowing economy.”
