Businesses, consumers and foreign leaders are trying to assess just how set in stone President Trump’s tariffs are, as the administration and its allies send mixed signals about whether the measures are being used for leverage.
Some Trump allies touted the tariffs — which have led to a massive stock market selloff and heightened fears of a recession — as the latest move from a master dealmaker. The tariffs, they argue, will force other countries to change their practices in search of leniency from the U.S.
The president himself told reporters the tariffs “give us great power to negotiate,” and he said Friday he’d had a “productive” conversation with the leader of Vietnam about tariff rates.
“I wouldn’t want to be the last country that tries to negotiate a trade deal with @realDonaldTrump,” Eric Trump, the president’s son, posted on the social platform X. “The first to negotiate will win – the last will absolutely lose.”
At the same time, President Trump on Friday declared in a Truth Social post that his policies “will never change.”
Meanwhile, multiple top administration officials were adamant that the tariffs were not meant as a negotiating tool, but as a way to rebalance global trade and revitalize American manufacturing.
“I don’t think there’s any chance they’re going to — that President Trump’s going to back off his tariffs. This is the reordering of global trade, right? That’s what’s going to happen,” Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said Thursday on CNN.
Peter Navarro, a vocal trade hawk, said around the rollout of the tariffs that it was “not a negotiation” but a “national emergency” related to trade deficits.
The mixed messaging is a reflection of how some in the administration are true believers in tariffs as an economic tool, but also how Trump sees nearly everything as being up for negotiation under the right circumstances.
“I think for Trump it is [a negotiation],” said one source close to the White House. “I think for Navarro, it’s a hard ideological reshuffling. He has a vision. And I think Trump is practical. The reality is you’re not going to significantly reshore all these jobs, manufacturing, reshuffle the economy in two, four, six years.”
“Trump wants to send a shock wave and bring people to the table,” the source added.
Trump on Wednesday announced a baseline 10 percent tariff on all imports. In addition, countries that were determined to be the “worst offenders” in terms of trade deficits were hit with a higher tariff rate, with China, the European Union, Japan, Cambodia, India, South Korea, Thailand and Vietnam among those facing the highest rates.
During remarks announcing the tariffs, Trump directly addressed the foreign leaders who he predicted would be reaching out to seek exemptions and signaled they could take significant steps to appease him.
“I say, terminate your own tariffs, drop your barriers, don’t manipulate your currencies … and start buying tens of billions of dollars of American goods,” Trump said.
But Trump and other White House officials have simultaneously suggested the tariffs are less about other countries’ trade practices and more about increasing the domestic manufacturing base.
“Yes, it will create jobs. Yes, it will increase revenues,” said deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller. “But most importantly, it will restore our national security so that we will not be dependent on anyone else to survive and thrive as a nation.”
Markets responded to Trump’s tariff announcement with their worst day of losses since 2020 on Thursday.
World leaders also reacted swiftly. China on Friday announced it would slap its own 34 percent tariff on U.S. goods. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said the European Union was prepared to respond with countermeasures, while French President Emmanuel Macron called on European companies to pause investments in the U.S.
Trump imposed tariffs on certain goods and countries during his first term, but the ones announced this week were far more sweeping, applying to imports from more than 100 countries. He also imposed auto tariffs this week and teased additional measures on semiconductors and pharmaceuticals.
Countries are already seeing that it may be difficult to avoid tariffs from the United States altogether under Trump, even if they take steps to extend an olive branch.
Israel announced Tuesday it had canceled all the customs duties levied on U.S. products. But that gesture was not enough to stop the Trump administration from imposing a 17 percent “reciprocal” tariff on its ally.
Canada and Mexico were hit last month with 25 percent tariffs on many goods, which the president said was because of a lack of action on stopping fentanyl from coming into the U.S.
But while those two top U.S. trading partners could negotiate an arrangement or show progress on fentanyl issues to get those tariffs lifted, White House officials said that 25 percent tariff would be replaced by 10 percent baseline rate.
It’s also unclear what leverage some tiny or very poor nations would have to negotiate with the United States.
Trump imposed a 10 percent tariff on the territory of Heard Island and McDonald Islands, which is populated by many penguins and does no trade with the U.S. He also imposed a 29 percent tariff on Norfolk Island, which has a population of fewer than 3,000 people.
Economists have noted that certain items imported from other countries cannot be easily manufactured in the United States, or that it would take years for major companies to essentially shift their supply chains and production bases into the U.S. to avoid tariffs.
“Trade agreements are all about establishing trust, because the exporter and the importer don’t know each other. They need predictability, and they need to know they can rely on each other to do what they say they’re going to do,” said Susan Aaronson, director of the Digital Trade and Data Governance Hub at George Washington University.
“They think disruption is good in some way, but disruption is really bad for trust. And I think of trade agreements as a way to provide that trust because they make trade predictable,” Aaronson added. “The United States doesn’t benefit when it becomes an unreliable partner.”
Alex Gangitano contributed
