Trade Battle Continues As President Trump Threatens More Tariffs

The United States and its trading partners continued to lobby tariffs threats back and forth last week. After European Union (EU) penalties on American products took effect on Friday, in a post on Twitter President Donald Trump threatened to impose a 20 percent tariff on all EU-made automobiles imported into the United States. The full list of products which will be subject to rebalancing measures can be found on the European Commission’s website.

The EU, of course, is not the only government that has retaliated against U.S. tariffs. The list below includes all of the other U.S. merchandise exports subject to retaliatory tariffs by foreign governments stemming from the U.S. steel and aluminum tariffs and other penalties:

• China applied tariffs to $2.8 billion of U.S. exports on April 2 (list here);
• Mexico applied tariffs to $3 billion of U.S. exports on June 5 (list here);
• Japan was reportedly planning to apply tariffs to $1.9 billion of U.S. exports on June 18 (effective date unclear, list here);
• Russia is reportedly planning to apply tariffs to $3.2 billion of U.S. exports on June 18 (effective date unclear, list here);
• Turkey applied tariffs to $1.8 billion of U.S. exports on June 21 (list here);
• Canada will apply tariffs to $12.8 billion of U.S. exports on July 1 (list here);
• China will apply tariffs (retaliation for U.S. 301 tariffs) to $34 billion of U.S. exports on July 6 (list here); and
• India will apply tariffs to $1.2 billion of U.S. exports reportedly postponed to August 4 (list here).

Also last week: President Trump asked U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer to draw up a list of $200 billion in Chinese products that would be hit with a 10 percent tariff.

The nonprofit, nonpartisan Tax Foundation is attempting to track the economic consequences of all of the U.S. penalties and the retaliatory tariffs. That analysis can be found here.