Are the Trump ‘Liberation Day’ tariffs reciprocal?

“Reciprocal” is an inaccurate term for the Trump Administration’s recent tariffs, as they are not calculated using the actual tariff rates countries have placed on U.S. imports.

Instead, officials took the U.S. trade deficit with each country and divided it by the value of all imports brought into the U.S. from that country. The resulting percentage was cut in half to determine the “reciprocal” tariff.

For example, The U.S. has a $235.6 billion trade deficit with the EU and imported $605.8 billion worth of goods from the EU. From this, officials claimed the EU imposed a 39% “tariff” and responded with a 20% “reciprocal” tariff. 

Actual tariff rates are typically calculated by dividing the value of all tariffs collected on imports by the value of those imports. By this metric, the EU imposes an average tariff rate of 3% on the U.S.