US presidents from Ronald Reagan against Bill Clinton and George W Bush have used the White House rose garden to celebrate important moments in the America’s attempt to liberalize the global economy.
But on Wednesday, Donald Trump chose the country to announce new steep tariffs for all imports with additional penalties for many of America’s highest trading partners, raising a protectionist obstacle to the world’s largest economy in a US international watershed.
“Our Declaration of Economic Independence,” Trump said, holding a poster with a list of senior places that would be hit by tariffs. “For years, the diligent American citizens were forced to sit at the borders while other nations became rich and powerful, many of it at our expenses, but now it is our turn to advance,” he added.
While the White House seems to deal with any new American Autarky form, an essential question is whether Trump will be able to maintain these aggressive trade policies for an extended period or will eventually return them under the weight of economic, market, political and even legal pressure. The future of S&P 500 decreased 3 percent after Trump’s announcement.
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While skepticism about global trade is being built at the US for the past decade, and Trump himself set taxes on hundreds of billions of Chinese goods during his first term held by Joe Biden, the US president has now moved beyond only targeting Beijing.
Trump is now using a larger economic division from a much wider range of countries, including Japan and South Korea and the EU, dramatically increasing actions – and the potential for economic damage.
“If you set tariffs for a country, like China, at least you have other markets available to you. If you impose them on everyone, then you only have your market to support,” warned Richard Fontaine, President of the Center for New American Security, a Washington thought.
“Throughout history, countries have tried it and usually ended up giving themselves lower economic growth, lower employment, higher prices, less quality,” he added.
“I hope (Trump) will roll some of these because I think it combines an economic policy that is not productive with an outward policy that is not productive,” Fontaine said.
Although the president campaigned for harsh trade policies during the 2024 elections – as he did in 2016 – his determination to make high fees his high economic advantage in the first months of his second term has been wonderful.
The White House officials stressed that they were pressuring structural changes in the global economy to correct the problems that would be difficult to overcome, ranging from high world fees to currency and tax policies, intellectual property thefts and even health and labor standards.
“Today we are in an era, and tomorrow, we will be in another era. No one has done anything like this,” a White House official told Journalists Wednesday afternoon.
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The widespread nature of Washington’s complaints has destroyed hopes that the president could calm down with a quick agreement and some changes in cosmetic policy – the most benign scenario for investors, big businesses and foreign officials.
“The notion that tariffs will be used simply as an instrument to negotiate short-term deals and earn on board victory must be fired,” said Myron Brilliant, a senior DGA-Albright Group, a consultancy in Washington.
“It can be a component of the strategy, but it’s not the central component. I think the basic mission that the president and his team are deciding, in their minds, ‘the level of the playing field’ and get a price on it,” he added.
Trump has also appeared to be less concerned about market turmoil and the potential for economic pain than in the past, which may mean that it will stay with tariffs for longer.
Some officials within the administration, such as Peter Navarro, the president’s trade adviser, are emphasizing the need for taxes to generate long -term incomes up to $ 600 billion a year, which can pay for other economic plans, including planned tax cuts.
But this does not mean that the administration’s tolerance for its own tariffs will be unlimited, especially if trading partners react by threatening or imposing revenge measures – as some already have – this will complicate economic impact.
A clash between business leaders, lobbyists, foreign leaders and diplomats to pray for expected exceptions and fragments is widely expected in the wednesday’s announcement, leading to troublesome, tense talks with potentially unequal results.
For now, a White House official said they were largely “focused on getting the tariff regime”. The initial fee for all 10 percent imports, which Trump had first sailed to the campaign tracks in August 2023, will take effect on April 5.
The Trump administration said tariffs can be reduced if trading partners take “important steps” to change their policies, but also that they can increase if trading partners retaliate.
“My tips for every country are now, don’t avenge, sit down, get it inside, let’s see how it goes,” Scott Bessent told the Treasury Secretary, for Fox News. “If you take revenge, there will be escalation. If it doesn’t take revenge, that’s the sign of high water.”
The push of tariffs can be complicated by a legal challenge for using Trump’s emergency powers to impose taxes. “We do not know how the courts will respond, but I’m sure it will be tested,” said Everett Eissenstat, a former Trump trade official now in Squire Patton Boggs, a legal firm.
But the main factor that can make Trump and his team have second opinions on their new trade policies can be raw policy. An immersion of the president’s approval or the fear of Capitol Hill that the Republican majority in both Congress houses could be endangered in the mid -2026 mid -term elections could promote a reinforcement.
“If Congress members begin to feel the pain because their constituents are screaming for higher prices. It can have an impact on the president, who has a large growth agenda before he still wants to go on.
But for now, in Washington as much as in board rooms and capitals around the world, the impact of building a high fence around the American economy is still being dissolved and seems full of danger.
“We have no idea what broad -based tariffs of this kind will issue … The world has not seen tariffs like this in the modern era of trade integration,” said Edward Alden, a senior associate in the Foreign Relations Council.
