The average US tariff rate might land around expectations

Trump has scattered tariffs all over the place but many of the losers in this are countries that don’t send much to the US anyway.

Some critical partners:

• China 54%
• European Union 39%
• Japan 24%
• India 26%
• South Korea 25%
• Vietnam 49%

Now there is an important caveat here in that none of those go into effect until April 9 so there is some time to negotiate.

Equally critical is that Canada and Mexico remain at 0% rates on USMCA-compliant goods, which covers most trade between them and for some other trade is just a matter of paperwork.

Last week, I wrote about what is expected on tariffs overall and I came down at 9-10% for average US trade plus 50% on China. Without doing the math, I think we’ve landed about there. I also think that could fall if we get some negotiating from the EU, Japan and others.

All that said, these China tariffs alone are a big problem for consumer prices and could create some big problems, especially with Vietnam still in there (it was a trans-shipment hub).

This article was written by Adam Button at www.forexlive.com.