The deliberations of President Donald Trump about his plans to impose reciprocal tariffs are reaching the end of the dayand it is said that his team is still finishing the size and scope of the new levies he plans to reveal on Wednesday afternoon.
In Tuesday’s meetings, Trump’s team continued to debate their options before an event at the Rosalda, Scheduled to start at the close of US markets at 4 pm on Wednesday, according to people familiar with ongoing conversations. The White House has not made a firm decision on its tariff plan, people said, who spoke on anonymity, despite the fact that Trump himself declared at the beginning of the week that he had “established” an approach.
It is said that several proposals are being considered, including a stepped tariff system with a set of fixed rates for each country, as well as a more personalized reciprocal plan. According to the first option, countries would see their products subject to taxes of 10% or 20%, depending on their tariff and non -tariff barriers on US products.
Rumors and whispers flooded Washington and Wall Street on Tuesday, less than 24 hours from Trump’s announcement, while companies, countries and lobbyists paid to influence the president’s agenda tried to find out the final details.The Wall Street Journal reported that Trump’s advisors were studying a more specific option, while Fox News announced Tuesday that Trump also continued to consider a 20%global global tariff.
Amid all speculation, the White House was silent on Tuesday about the details of Trump’s plan, before the president’s formal announcement.
The Treasury Secretary, Scott Besent, informed legislators that tariffs would be a maximum limit, which would reflect the maximum levels to which they would reach, and that countries could then take measures to reduce them, as the representative Kevin Hern, Republican of Oklahoma, told CNBC. On Tuesday, the White House Secretary, Karoline Leavitt, said that tariffs would immediately take effect, but that Trump was open to later negotiation.
“Certainly, the president is always willing to attend a phone call, always willing to a good negotiation,” he said.
In total, The last minute movement indicated that the scope and details of the long promised announcement are changing, at the same time that the spectacle of the event, called a celebration “let the United States be rich again,” takes prominence.
Cabinet officials and legislators have been invited to the announcement, together with workers and executives of the American steel industry, according to people familiar with plans. Trump representatives plan to participate in radio waves throughout the day to present the president’s vision, Harrison Fields, a White House spokesman, declared Tuesday during an interview with Sean Spicer, who was Trump press secretary during his first term.
Even as the announcement approached, various approaches of broad reach followed on the table.
Under the two -level approach, the highest encumbrances would apply to perceived countries as the largest offenders, both in terms of real tariffs and easily quantifiable non -tariff measures that act to deter the US imports. Trump’s White House has complained this week about EU, Japan, India and Canada’s commercial practices, for example.
Another approach would imply that the United States applied individualized reciprocal rates, adapted to each country based on its existing non -tariff taxes and barriers. This approach was announced publicly for weeks, but some recent deliberations suggest that it is no longer the main approach.
The possibility of resuming Trump’s original proposal has also been discussed: a uniform global tariff, which would apply equally to billions of imports. The Wall Street Journal reported that Trump was considering a more specific plan that would apply a tariff of less than 20 % to a smaller group of countries.
At noon on Tuesday, Leavitt told journalists that Trump was “with his trade team and tariffs at this time perfecting him to ensure that this is a perfect agreement for the American people and the US worker.”
Regardless of the approach that Trump finally adopts, the encumbrances could be applied widely, Even countries with which the United States does not have a commercial imbalance, and they are expected to represent one of the greatest new taxes to imports in the history of the United States.
They would also open a window for new negotiations with countries, many of which have already been talking with administration officials before the ad, which means that new trade agreements could make rates continue to evolve in the coming weeks and months.
Even so, new levies could be applied rapidly, potentially affecting cargoes that are already on their way to the United States.
While the White House said that tariffs would immediately take effect, most likely they are imposed at 12:01 am, New York time, on Thursday, when other taxes on car imports should go into force. The Administration has delayed the implementation of some previously announced tariffs on some Chinese, Mexican and Canadian products due to logistical concerns, and similar problems could again arise.
The frantic internal process and the last minute crisis are not unusual for Trump, who adopted a similar approach to the automotive tariffs announced last week. However, they indicate a true internal debate on an issue that, according to external analysts, could take the country to a recession.
Uncertainty has shaken the markets, has led economists to cut their growth forecasts and has forced central bankers to take into account the possible inflationary impact of import costs.
Trump wants to raise US $ 700,000 million annually in tariff revenues, said one of his most aggressive commercial advisors, Peter Navarro.
Trump declared on Monday that he had made a “long time” decision, but did not reveal it. Leavitt reiterated that statement, Although the White House refused to comment on several proposals that, it is said, are being considered. A spokesman did not immediately respond to additional comments requests on Tuesday.
Other key questions are discussed, such as the fate of tariffs already applied to China, Canada and Mexico, and that have been partially reduced for these last two. The White House has not said if these will be replaced by Trump’s announcement on Wednesday, or if their measure of exempting the goods marketed under the continental commercial pact could extend in some way to the new levies. The president has also promised future tariffs to key sectors such as the pharmacist, semiconductors and wood.
