President Donald Trump sent pricing letters to seven small American business partners Wednesday with a commitment to announce import taxes on other countries later.
None of the targeted countries in the first batch of letters – the Philippines, the Brunei, Moldova, Algeria, Libya, Iraq and Sri Lanka – is a great industrial rival for the United States. It is a sign that a president who openly expressed his love for the word “price” is always in love with the idea that falsified trade will create prosperity for America.
Most economic analyzes indicate that prices will worsen inflationary pressures and subtract economic growth, but Trump has used taxes as a means of asserting the diplomatic and financial power of the United States on rivals and allies. Its administration promises that import taxes will reduce commercial imbalances, will compensate for part of the cost of the tax discounts it signed on Friday and will result in factory jobs in the United States.
Officials of the European Union, a large trading partner and source of Trump’s IRE on trade, said on Tuesday that they were not expecting to receive a letter from Trump listing prices. The Republican President began the announcement process of rate rates on Monday by reaching two major American trade partners, Japan and South Korea, with import taxes of 25%.
According to letters from Trump, imports from Libya, Iraq, Algeria and Sri Lanka are taxed at 30%, those of Moldova and Brunei at 25%and those of the Philippines at 20%. The prices would start on August 1.
The census office indicated that last year, the United States had led a commercial imbalance on goods of US $ 1.4 billion with Algeria, 5.9 billion US dollars with Iraq, $ 900 million with Libya, 4.9 billion US dollars with the Philippines, $ 2.6 billion Urka, 111 million US dollars with Brunei and $ 85 million with Moldova. The imbalance represents the difference between what the United States has exported to these countries and what it imported.
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Overall, commercial imbalances with these seven countries are essentially a rounding error in an American economy with a gross domestic product of 30 billions of dollars.
The letters were published on TRUTH Social after the expiration of a 90 -day negotiation period with a reference levy of 10%. Trump gives countries more time to negotiate with his deadline of August 1, but he insisted that there will be no extensions for countries that receive letters.
Maros Sefcovic, the head of the EU commerce, told EU legislators in Strasbourg, France on Wednesday on Wednesday that the EU had been spared the increased prices contained in the letters sent by Trump and that an extension of the talks until August 1 would provide “an additional space to achieve a satisfactory conclusion”.
On April 2, Trump proposed a tariff of 20% for EU goods and then threatened to increase this to 50% after the negotiations did not go as quickly as he would have liked, to return to the basic line of 10%. The EU has 27 member states, including France, Germany, Italy and Spain.
Price letters are aggressively formulated in Trump’s writing style. He supervises prices as an invitation to “participate in the extraordinary economy of the United States”, adding that commercial imbalances are a “major threat” to the American economy and national security.
The president threatened with additional rates over any country that is trying to retaliate. He said he had chosen to send the letters because he was too complicated for American officials to negotiate with their counterparts in countries with new prices. This can take years for broker of trade agreements.
Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba interpreted the deadline for August 1 as a delay to give more time for negotiations, although he has warned in remarks that prices harm the national industries and the employment of his country.
The Minister of Commerce of Malaysia, ZAFRUL Aziz, said on Wednesday that his country would not respond to all American requests after a letter from Trump had placed a 25% tariff on his goods. Aziz said that US officials are looking for changes in government supply, halal certification, medical standards and digital taxes. Aziz said it was red lines.
PF State secretary Marco Rubio is expected to arrive in the capital of Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia on Thursday.
–The editors of the Associated Press David Mchugh in Frankfurt, Germany and Eileen Ng in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, contributed to this report.
& Copy 2025 the Canadian press
