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Archive 1Archive 2

Requested move 8 April 2025

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: not moved (non-admin closure). Dasomm (talk) 08:51, 9 April 2025 (UTC)

Tariffs in the second Trump administration → Global trade war (2025–present) – It is global economic conflict like we've never seen before, which began Trump administration with countries around the world. Trump’s tariffs already inflicting serious economic damage. Dasomm (talk) 20:36, 8 April 2025 (UTC)

Strong oppose as a much less concise title. Departure– (talk) 20:44, 8 April 2025 (UTC)
The proposed title is less words and less characters, whether you count what's inside the parentheses or not. 1101 (talk) 02:39, 9 April 2025 (UTC)
Oppose I think this article has a scope that is different from the current global economic conflict. It's about all tariffs imposed during these four years, not just the ones in April 2025. PrinceTortoise (he/him • poke) 21:39, 8 April 2025 (UTC)
Oppose as this is not a global trade war. A global trade war would refer to a lot of countries fighting a lot of other countries economically. This is really just the US vs the world. Timetorockknowlege (talk) 23:35, 8 April 2025 (UTC)
I would still call that a global trade war as financial markets are screwed up around the world and some countries could be in dire straights. But, that is not a !vote for or against this RM. O3000, Ret. (talk) 00:28, 9 April 2025 (UTC)
Oppose. The current title is sufficient. KyuuA4 (Talk:キュウ) 02:23, 9 April 2025 (UTC)
Oppose. The current name is clear. The proposed name leaves many questions unanswered. 1101 (talk) 02:38, 9 April 2025 (UTC)
  • Comment — I personally am unconvinced one way or another but I wanted to add some missing context here. Several reputable journals are referring to this event as a "trade war" of some kind.
"Global Trade War" WSJ
"Trump’s Trade War" WSJ
"Trump Trade War" WSJ
"Trade War" NPR
"President Trump's trade war" NPR
"global trade war" CNN
AP Reuters NYT etc.
and many more examples this is all just from a quick search. So I don't think it's fair to dismiss the proposal just on whether we don't like it. Bausen Slaw (talk) 02:56, 9 April 2025 (UTC)
Great, thank you! Dasomm (talk) 08:00, 9 April 2025 (UTC)
Oppose - as per other comments regarding the suitability of the title. Calling it a "Global trade war" seems like borderline whitewashing from the cause, especially when the article makes it clear that the cause and rise of the situation are Tariffs in the second Trump administration. Chaheel Riens (talk) 08:13, 9 April 2025 (UTC)
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

Reactions by country

The article seems to be missing content about each country's reaction to the tariff. Perhaps it could be included in the article or on its own page. Syn73 (talk) 03:48, 9 April 2025 (UTC)

Found it. Syn73 (talk) 03:50, 9 April 2025 (UTC)
Someone moved the section to Executive Order 14257 which is ...odd? I feel like these articles are getting confusing (Donald Trump's Liberation Day speech and Executive Order 14257 felt like conveying the same thing) and I need to go to the obscure executive order article to view the countries' reactions. Syn73 (talk) 12:19, 9 April 2025 (UTC)
@Syn73 agree, the on-going AFD at liberation day speech seems to have a consensus of moving "Donald Trump's Liberation Day speech" to a new name that would include info on the speech as well as expand on Tariffs in the second Trump administration#"Reciprocal tariff" policy.
I began a discussion on what the new name should be over here. Yes, there really are a lot of articles connected to this topic; I'm skeptical they'll all be maintained well. satkara❈talk 15:01, 9 April 2025 (UTC)

Exempted countries

@Nice4What I undid your edit for now so we can talk it out. Please see this discussion as well. Other users have attempted to add "Belarus, Burkina Faso, Palau, Seychelles, Somalia, and Vatican City" as well, but the executive order does not include an exemption for them.

The two relevant exclusions are:

1. "The additional ad valorem duty on all imports from all trading partners shall start at 10 percent and shortly thereafter, the additional ad valorem duty shall increase for trading partners enumerated in Annex I" -- these are the Annex I countries, ie just the ones with rates above 10%.

2. "(v) all articles from a trading partner subject to the rates set forth in Column 2 of the Harmonized Tariff Schedule of the United States (HTSUS);" -- which is just Cuba, Russia, Belarus and North Korea.

The other countries may not have been listed on Trump's board, but according to the EO they would still be impacted by the "duty on all imports from all trading partners" EO.

Do you have a reliable source explaining not just that they weren't included, but how they aren't impacted? satkara❈talk 15:17, 9 April 2025 (UTC)

The two Tariff Posters (3 columns) and the two page document (2 columns)

The two Tariff Posters (3 columns):

  • "Posters displaying information on reciprocal tariffs in the James S. Brady Press Briefing Room of the White House in Washington, DC, US". The Irish Times. Bloomberg News. April 2, 2025. Archived from the original on 11 April 2025. Retrieved 11 April 2025.
  • "In pictures: Trump signs executive order on global tariffs". The Irish Times. 2 April 2025. Archived from the original on April 2, 2025. Retrieved 11 April 2025.

the two-page document (2 columns):

Is there reporting on the third column?

69.181.17.113 (talk) 04:01, 11 April 2025 (UTC)

Should we remove the "Germany" section and just make it part of the wider "EU"?

I do not quite see the reason of "Germany" being separate from the rest of the EU, especially since the section is really small. Also if we were to do a section for every Major EU nation it'd be too long. So my idea is to merge EU nations into the same section as its already done besides from Germany. But this does bring the debate on if we should make a separate article on Country-specific tariffs WITHIN the EU as each EU member reacted and was affected differently from Trump's tariffs. VitoxxMass (talk) 10:07, 11 April 2025 (UTC)

@VitoxxMass I support this! WP:NOTDATABASE means we should shorten or get rid of a lot of the countries. satkara❈talk 13:44, 11 April 2025 (UTC)

Please include more numbers

While "trade deficit" is mentioned, no value is given. Let's have an NPOV and included some reasoning. For example, the US trade deficit with China is about 2 trillion dollars. https://countryeconomy.com/deficit/usa Furthermore, congress has repeatedly shut down the government because of increasing debt, i.e. the debt ceiling. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government_shutdowns_in_the_United_States#List_of_federal_shutdowns What the tariffs are supposed to address is lost in a sea of political opinion. Sad, and what a short memory: perhaps another debt ceiling crisis would help? Nah, the past few didn't seem to wake anyone up.

Perhaps put in the lede that the government has been shut down 10 times over the debt ceiling since 1980, and it will likely be shut down again.

What interest does the US pay for the existing deficit/debt? I need a number. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.61.99.105 (talk • contribs)

No, the trade deficit with China is not $2 trillion. The goods and services gap was about $263 billion last year. Government shutdowns are for political reasons usually unrelated to the US debt. Historically more about efforts to demand abortion legislation or other such issues. Besides, the government is not buying all this stuff. The rates depend on the various treasury auctions. O3000, Ret. (talk) 18:38, 11 April 2025 (UTC)

Error in formula

This formula:

Actually yields a negative number, because the US imports are higher than the exports. The whole thing should be multiplied by -1. The issue was disguised with this bit of nonsense

Let ε<0 represent the elasticity of imports[1]

In a source that also chose to put some random asterisks in the equation. In any case, the formula does not reduce to the above It reduces to (-1) multiplied by the above. Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 12:03, 14 April 2025 (UTC)

incorrect info in the list of country-specific tariffs

In the table in the section "Country-specific tariffs", there's a line indicating "All other nations: 10%", but this is incorrect because a few countries like Russia and North Korea are not targeted by those tariffs (sure, it's because they're already under other sanctions, but this is still incorrect to say they have 10% tariffs imposed on them). I corrected to "most other nations", but I'm afraid this is not very useful to people who'd want to use this table; but at least this is not incorrect.  — The preceding un­signed comment was added by 37.167.199.149 (talk)

Thank you for this information, which I believe to be correct.[2][3] I'm going to look for your edit and see if any adjustments are necessary, maybe via a footnote or parenthetical? 1101 (talk) 09:30, 5 April 2025 (UTC)
@Talib1101: I’m not sure the footnote you added is correct. While those countries weren’t included in the “Reciprocal Tariffs” tables the White House posted on Twitter, the actual executive order states that “The additional ad valorem duty on all imports from all trading partners shall start at 10 percent”, later providing exceptions only for Canada and Mexico, not Belarus, Cuba, North Korea, or Russia. “Liberation Day” tables seem to be wrong in another way too; they include Saint Pierre and Miquelon (50%), Réunion (37%), and Norfolk Island (29%), but the executive order states that “the additional ad valorem duty shall increase for trading partners enumerated in Annex I to this order at the rates set forth in Annex I to this order”, and Annex I doesn’t list any of the three territories. Brainiac242 (talk) 10:52, 5 April 2025 (UTC)
Maybe you're right. The system is quite confusing. So you say there's a baseline 10% with "reciprocal" (calculated) tariffs added onto that, and that's what the countries in the note are spared? Feel free to revert, or maybe even use the note to clarify something else. 1101 (talk) 10:56, 5 April 2025 (UTC)
Trump said he would impose a 10% baseline tariff on all imports to the United States and higher duties on dozens of countries. Russia, Cuba and North Korea did not appear on the list of countries facing higher 'reciprocal' tariffs, ... I think you're right. They are exempt from the calculated part of the reciprocal tariffs, but not the 10% part, which applies to literally everything? 1101 (talk) 10:58, 5 April 2025 (UTC)
@Talib1101: Yeah, I think what’s different for these countries is that, because they are already subject to tariffs higher than the 10% baseline, nothing immediately changes for them. But if their sanctions were lifted, they would still be subject to this 10% tariff. Brainiac242 (talk) 11:15, 5 April 2025 (UTC)
Are you sure 10% is the baseline baseline? I think it's the additional baseline, if that makes sense. We can't speculate on what he'd do in a hypothetical speculation. Or, we can but we don't know. I believe he isn't setting the tariffs to 10%, but adding a 10% tariff. It is confusing, though.
As for your thing about "already higher than baseline", well, that's true. But so were some other countries, such as China, right? And he still tariffed them. I do think we should make it clear in the table which countries aren't subject to additional, "reciprocal" (baseline plus calculated) tariffs.
So I'll be adding the note back.[4] 1101 (talk) 11:22, 5 April 2025 (UTC)
Reuters:
I'm getting contradictory information
Emphasis on "many countries" — not all. But I could still be wrong given how confusing this tariff situation seems to be. I'll be going to bed so maybe someone else can figure it out. 1101 (talk) 11:42, 5 April 2025 (UTC)
To be clear, the New York Post is a terrible source, but it claims The Kremlin was among a handful of countries noticeably exempt from Trump’s decision to slap a 10% baseline tariff on all imports to the US, as well as higher duties on some of its biggest global trading partners.
So it's possible that by "reciprocal" tariffs, Reuters used scare-quotes for good reason. The tariffs, though calculated, are at a baseline even with no trade defect. (with trade deficit conflated with retaliatory tariffs?)
So, to be exempted from reciprocal tariffs is also to be exempted from the 10% in the table. (Correct me if I'm wrong). 1101 (talk) 11:17, 5 April 2025 (UTC)
@Talib1101: As I understand it, tariffs on imports to the US “shall start at 10 percent”, except for the few exceptions listed on the executive order. This means countries weren’t “imposed” 10% tariffs, but the tariffs they are subject to “are increased” to 10%, regardless of how high they were. Tariffs on some countries were increased to higher levels, because of the United States’ high (as determined by the formula) trade deficit with those countries. Russia, like the United Kingdom, was spared from those higher tariffs but, unlike the UK, it won’t see tariffs increase to 10% because it was already subject to tariffs higher than 10%; they are still subject to this baseline 10% tariff, but it won’t have any practical consequences for them.
I want to emphasize the “As I understand it” part, the system is, indeed, quite confusing. Brainiac242 (talk) 11:46, 5 April 2025 (UTC)
@Brainiac242 - Cuba, Russia, Belarus, and North Korea are "column 2" countries and thus exempted by this part of the EO: " (v) all articles from a trading partner subject to the rates set forth in Column 2 of the Harmonized Tariff Schedule of the United States (HTSUS);". satkara❈talk 14:03, 5 April 2025 (UTC)
@Satkara: My mistake. Thank you for the correction. I don’t know how I missed that part. Brainiac242 (talk) 14:44, 5 April 2025 (UTC)
@Brainiac242 No problem! It's confusing. I'm still wondering why Iran and Syria aren't column 2 countries. satkara❈talk 14:53, 5 April 2025 (UTC)
@Satkara: Or why Afghanistan got the baseline 10% tariff when, according to the formula used, they should have got 25%. Or why they listed Saint Pierre and Miquelon, Réunion, and Norfolk Island on the “Liberation Day” tables, but they aren’t included in Annex I. Brainiac242 (talk) 15:05, 5 April 2025 (UTC)
@Brainiac242 I think you just missed the column 2 exemption but otherwise have it right. Everyone gets at least a 10% tariff, and the annex 1 countries get higher rates, unless they're a column 2 country or the good is excluded. satkara❈talk 16:49, 5 April 2025 (UTC)
^Are we sure we have it correct that the 10% applies to Cuba, Russia, Belarus, and North Korea?
The EO indicates that the 10% is on top of anything that exists, and that Cuba + Russa + Belarus + North Korea are exempt from the EO entirely:
S2: "The additional ad valorem duty on all imports from all trading partners shall start at 10 percent and shortly thereafter, the additional ad valorem duty shall increase for trading partners enumerated in Annex I to this order at the rates set forth in Annex I to this order..."
S3(a): "...Except as otherwise provided in this order, all articles imported into the customs territory of the United States shall be, consistent with law, subject to an additional ad valorem rate of duty of 10 percent...Furthermore, except as otherwise provided in this order, at 12:01 a.m. eastern daylight time on April 9, 2025, all articles from trading partners enumerated in Annex I to this order imported into the customs territory of the United States shall be, consistent with law, subject to the country-specific ad valorem rates of duty specified in Annex I to this order...
S3(b): "The following goods as set forth in Annex II to this order, consistent with law, shall not be subject to the ad valorem rates of duty under this order:... (v) all articles from a trading partner subject to the rates set forth in Column 2 of the Harmonized Tariff Schedule of the United States (HTSUS) [i.e. Cuba, Russia, Belarus, North Korea]
S3(c): "The rates of duty established by this order are in addition to any other duties, fees, taxes, exactions, or charges applicable to such imported articles, except as provided in subsections (d) and (e) of this section below [i.e. except for Canada and Mexico]."
(emphases mine)
In other words, it appears to set out two categories of ad valorem duty (i.e. the 10% addition and the country-specific additions), and then specifically exempts Cuba + Russia + Belarus + North Korea from both categories. I admit that the use of "all trading partners" in section 2 sounds sweeping, but perhaps they do not consider Cuba + Russa + Belarus + North Korea to be "trading partners"? In any case, section 3 seems pretty clear, which I think overcomes section 2's vagueness.
I therefore think that it is not correct to say 'All other countries' get the 10%
Disclaimer: I'm not an American lawyer Gfoxwood (talk) 11:40, 16 April 2025 (UTC)
@Gfoxwood I have the same reading you do, column 2 countries are exempted entirely. It also explains why sanctioned but non-column 2 countries like Syria appear on the list. satkara❈talk 13:21, 16 April 2025 (UTC)
OK, I'm thinking therefore that the table row should be edited to "All other non-exempt countries and territories". Let me know if you disagree. Gfoxwood (talk) 21:29, 16 April 2025 (UTC)
I don't see the 34.45% tariff on Canadian softwood lumber? 2604:3D09:1689:300:D8CE:2866:83DD:9D37 (talk) 16:26, 13 April 2025 (UTC)
This was mentioned by Canadian officials, but I've yet to see anything about it from the White House. There is a section 232 investigation into lumber and my guess is that Canada is just talking about what's obviously coming. satkara❈talk 13:18, 16 April 2025 (UTC)

Error in formula

This story is making the rounds in several RS today.[5] According to a conservative think tank, an incorrect number was used in the tariff formula making every tariff four times higher than that for which the formula was constructed. (Not commenting on the sanity of the formula itself) This is briefly mentioned in the lengthy NYT article cited in the article, but not in the article. If it lasts another day without comment from the administration, likely should be added. O3000, Ret. (talk) 20:18, 8 April 2025 (UTC)

@Objective3000 this is what is referred to in the sentence "Brent Neiman said the administration used the wrong variable from his research—leading to results four times too high—and that trade deficits reflect economic fundamentals, not unfair trade" in the section Tariffs in the second Trump administration#Reactions, below formula, but maybe it could be made clearer or more visible? satkara❈talk 20:41, 8 April 2025 (UTC)
I think this is of rather major significance, particularly given the multi-trillion $ swings we are seeing in the US financial markets alone, and swings in financial markets around the world. The coverage is also heavy in RS today. A factor of four is massive in this case. O3000, Ret. (talk) 20:49, 8 April 2025 (UTC)
Would one of you be able to say if my "plain English" version is acceptable? My goal was to make it legible for a beginning algebra student, say an 8th grader. -SusanLesch (talk) 20:21, 9 April 2025 (UTC)
@SusanLesch I thought it was a little confusing where the 2 was coming from and tried to clarify. What do you think? satkara❈talk 22:35, 9 April 2025 (UTC)
Good job, thanks. Now the whole section is consistent. -SusanLesch (talk) 22:40, 9 April 2025 (UTC)
Now the formula and examples here are mathematically correct, but in the original white house press release examples [6] ε was 4 (not -4), and they used * in the formula, which has been corrected here. Should we present the formula as it was first published (accurate), or should we present it like it should have been (good faith)? Markuswestermoen (talk) 00:08, 17 April 2025 (UTC)

Article Protection

Should this article be protected? It has experienced some vandalism in the past, would it be safer to protect the page so that vandalism need not be a problem? MrGumballs (talk) 17:16, 17 April 2025 (UTC)

Protection is only necessary when disruption overwhelms other editors and is a constant plague. That doesn't seem to be the case so far. Tarlby (t) (c) 17:19, 17 April 2025 (UTC)
I've seen some problems occur, but it could be not enough for a protected article status. MrGumballs (talk) 17:45, 17 April 2025 (UTC)
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