“Liberation Day”: Trump is preparing to announce a new salvo of customs rights but promises to be “nice”

Donald Trump warned several times. On April 2 will be a “release day” for the United States by promising to establish a series of “reciprocal” customs duties (equivalent to those applied by other countries on American products) or taxes on imports from other countries, which, according to him, will release the United States from its dependence on foreign products. And for, the White House spokesperson Karoline Leavitt, this project will apply to almost all of the United States business partners.

However, this time and unlike the previous ones where he had targeted very specific categories of products: the automobile, the steel, the aluminum, the American president maintains a certain vagueness. “We are going to be very nice,” said Donald Trump on Monday while promising that his initiative would allow a “rebirth” of America. The other countries “have taken advantage of us, and we are going to be very nice, compared to what they have done to us,” he said, assuring that the American customs duties would be “lower”, and in certain cases “significantly lower” than those imposed by other states. Terms that have reassured investors a bit. The Asian and European scholarships which had clearly fell back on Monday bounced a little in the night and this morning.

“All scenarios have been analyzed”

In the meantime, faced with these uncertainties, the economic partners of the United States are preparing to take the shock. Everyone reviews their options and is waiting to know precisely what the White House tenant will decide.

“Our countermeasures were evaluated and analyzed, for example, how we would react to a customs right of 10 % or how we would react at a rate of 25 %,” summed up the Taiwanese Minister of Economic Affairs Kuo Jyh-Huei by adding: “All the scenarios were analyzed and evaluated to identify the appropriate responses and determine the best way to help national industries”.

Other countries have been more soothing. Vietnam has reduced its customs duties to a series of goods to try to coax Washington. And Japan has announced to create a thousand “consultation counters” to help companies, while continuing its efforts to get Washington an exemption for its country. For his part, the Minister of Foreign Affairs Mexican Juan Ramón de la Fuente spoke to him by phone to the American Secretary of State Marco Rubio to request the maintenance of the North America free trade treaty linking the two countries and Canada which are particularly in the Washington crosshairs.

“A solid plan”

The head of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen has warned. “We do not necessarily want to take reprisal measures,” she said, but “we have a solid plan to do so if necessary”. “I hear the Americans when they say that others took advantage of the rules,” she added before the MEPs. ” I agree. We also suffer from it ”. “But generalized customs duties only worsen the situation, they do not improve it,” she pleaded. “(CE) are taxes that will be paid by citizens,” she hammered while Europe is not “at the origin of this confrontation”.

“Europe will have to respond to be able to be in a balance of power, synonymous with the power it can be and that it must be,” added the French Minister Delegate to Foreign Trade Laurent Saint-Martin by adding: “We will defend our interests, those of our industries, those of our sectors”. And to conclude: “We have a global competition which includes new rules, even which removes the rules. We have to adapt to it and we have to block Europeans. The power of tomorrow, it will be European or it will not be, ”he said.