This is the dubious way Trump appears to have calculated his ‘reciprocal’ tariffs

This is the dubious way Trump appears to have calculated his ‘reciprocal’ tariffs

President Donald Trump’s massive tariffs announced on dozens of nations Wednesday were pitched as “reciprocal,” matching what other countries charge the United States dollar for dollar, even taking into account non-tariff barriers like value-added taxes and other such measures. But the actual calculation the Trump administration seems to have used seems not to be reciprocal at all. Matching countries’ tariffs dollar for dollar is an incredibly difficult task, involving poring over each country’s tariff schedule and matching a complex array of products, each of which has a different charge for any variants. Instead, the Trump administration seems to have used quite a simple calculation: the country’s trade deficit divided by its exports to the United States times 1/2. That’s it. The calculation was first suggested by journalist James Surowiecki in a post on X and backed up by Wall Street analysts. For example, America’s trade deficit with China in 2024 was $295.4 billion, and the United States imported $439.9 billion worth of Chinese goods. That means China’s trade surplus with the United States was 67% of the value of its exports — a value the Trump administration labeled as “tariff charged to USA.”