Trump team weighs broader, higher tariffs

Donald Trump’s advisers have considered imposing global tariffs of up to 20 per cent that would hit virtually all US trading partners.

Donald Trump waves to supporters from his limousine as he arrives at Trump International Golf Club in Florida. Picture: AP.

The Trump administration is scrambling to determine the specifics of its new trade agenda ahead of its self-imposed deadline of Wednesday, weighing options as President Trump has promised to remake the American economy with a swath of new tariffs.

One key point of debate is whether to impose individualized tariff rates for US trading partners, as the president has previewed in recent weeks, or revert to his campaign pledge for an across-the-board tariff that would affect virtually every nation doing business with the US, say people familiar with the conversations.

Trump spent most of last week playing down expectations for his so-called reciprocal tariff plan on April 2, saying repeatedly that he would be “nicer” than his previous pledges to equalize US tariffs with those charged by other nations, and would consider exempting some nations from tariffs altogether.

But in recent days Trump has pushed his team to be more aggressive, people familiar with the conversations said, encouraging them to devise plans that would apply higher rates of tariffs on a broader set of nations.

Exactly how that will happen remains unclear. In recent days, advisers have considered imposing global tariffs of up to 20 per cent that would hit virtually all US trading partners. Trump and his team for months promoted such a plan on the campaign trail, before the president publicly ditched it in favor of a so-called reciprocal tariff plan that would mean “what they [other nations] charge us, we charge them,” as the president put it.

That reciprocal plan is also still on the table, an administration official said, adding that the president is inclined to tariff every nation that the US runs a trade deficit with, and that he wants a “clean number” for each nation -- though no final decisions have been made.

Whatever the final plan, the official added, the president wants the policy to be “big and simple.” That likely means the final action will be broader than earlier plans to prioritize levying tariffs on the US’s biggest trading partners -- about 15 per cent of the world’s nations, which Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent had labeled in media appearances as the “dirty 15.” In addition to the debate over the reciprocal tariff plan, the president’s team is also considering unveiling a slate of new industry-specific tariffs that could hit critical minerals and products that contain them, among other industries, people familiar with the discussions said. It is still unclear if those duties will be unveiled April 2, but they are expected to be included in a trade policy review document that the US trade representative’s office is slated to deliver to Trump on Tuesday, the day before the announcement.

That reciprocal approach had been supported by National Economic Council chair Kevin Hassett as a way to rebalance US trading relationships without dramatically increasing prices on US consumers. But in recent days, the team has also debated the idea of virtually universal tariffs as a way to increase government revenue and offset tax cuts that Republicans are pushing through Congress.

Hassett said Sunday that the tariffs and a tax bill being crafted by congressional Republicans would buoy the US economy.

“I think the naysayers will be proven wrong if they’re a little bit nervous about the blips from this week to next,” he said on Fox News’s “Sunday Morning Futures.”

Trump has also publicly played down any concerns about higher prices, telling NBC News on Saturday that he didn’t care if foreign automakers raise their prices for US consumers in response to new tariffs.

“I couldn’t care less, because if the prices on foreign cars go up, they’re going to buy American cars,” Trump said. “I hope they raise their prices, because if they do, people are gonna buy American-made cars. We have plenty.”

In the interview, the president also disputed that he had instructed US automaker CEOS on a call in early March not to raise prices, which executives have said is inevitable in the face of tariffs. The Wall Street Journal reported last week that Trump had warned executives that the White House would look unfavourably on such a move, leaving some of them rattled and worried they would face punishment if they increased prices.

“I never said that,” Trump told NBC.

Americans’ frustration with the cost of living helped send Trump to the White House and his administration has sought to curb inflation. Automakers and parts manufacturers can absorb some of the added costs but not all, and they are likely to pass some increases on to the consumer. On average, vehicle prices could rise 11% to 12% to offset tariff duties, Morgan Stanley analysts wrote in a recent note.

Democrats argued that Trump’s trade policies aren’t helping Americans. “Americans will pay more,” Sen. Mark Warner (D., Va.) said on “Fox News Sunday.” He added, “They hired this president to bring down costs and you’ve got the market crashing because they think the tariffs are stupid.” White House trade adviser Peter Navarro defended the administration’s approach, saying on “Fox News Sunday” that the revenue generated by imposing tariffs will help offset the cost of extending expiring tax cuts in a package being put together by congressional Republicans that will benefit middle-class Americans.

“If you look at this basically holistically, as they say, consumers and Americans are going to be better off, including all the jobs they get,” Navarro said.

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