Trump signs order imposing new tariffs on a number of trading partners
The move is the next step in his trade agenda that will test the global economy and sturdiness of American alliances built up over decades.
Advertisement
The order was issued shortly after 7pm on Thursday. It came after a flurry of tariff-related activity in the last several days, as the White House announced agreements with various nations and blocs ahead of the president's self-imposed Friday deadline.
The tariffs are being implemented at a later date in order for the rates schedule to be harmonised, according to a senior administration official who spoke to reporters on a call on the condition of anonymity.
After initially threatening the African nation of Lesotho with a 50% tariff, the country's goods will now be taxed at 15%. Taiwan will have tariffs set at 20%, Pakistan at 19% and Israel, Iceland, Norway, Fiji, Ghana, Guyana and Ecuador among the countries with imported goods taxed at 15%. Switzerland would be tariffed at 39%.
My statement on Canada-U.S. trade:
pic.twitter.com/0PSG9kKtiO
— Mark Carney (@MarkJCarney)
August 1, 2025
Mr Trump had announced a 50% tariff on goods from Brazil, but the order was only 10% as the other 40% were part of a separate measure approved on Wednesday.
Advertisement
The order capped off a hectic Thursday as nations sought to continue negotiating with Mr Trump.
It set the rates for 68 countries and the 27-member European Union, with a baseline 10% rate to be charged on countries not listed in the order.
The senior administration official said the rates were based on trade imbalance with the US and regional economic profiles.
On Thursday morning, Mr Trump engaged in a phone conversation with Mexican president Claudia Sheinbaum on trade. As a result of the conversation, the US president said he would enter into a 90-day negotiating period with Mexico, one of the nation's largest trading partners.
Advertisement
The current 25% tariff rates are staying in place, down from the 30% he had threatened earlier.
Mexican president Claudia Sheinbaum (Marco Ugarte/AP)
'We avoided the tariff increase announced for tomorrow and we got 90 days to build a long-term agreement through dialogue,' Ms Sheinbaum wrote on X after a call with Mr Trump that he referred to as 'very successful' in terms of the leaders getting to know each other better.
The unknowns created a sense of drama that has defined Mr Trump's rollout of tariffs over several months. However, the one consistency is his desire to levy the import taxes that most economists say will ultimately be borne to some degree by US consumers and businesses.
'We have made a few deals today that are excellent deals for the country,' Mr Trump told reporters on Thursday afternoon, without detailing the terms of those agreements or the nations involved.
Advertisement
The senior administration official declined to reveal the nations that have new deals during the call with reporters.
Mr Trump said that Canadian prime minister Mark Carney had called ahead of 35% tariffs being imposed on many of his nation's goods, but 'we haven't spoken to Canada today'.
Mr Trump separately on Thursday amended a previous order to raise the fentanyl-related tariff on Canada from 25% to 35%.
Mr Trump had imposed the Friday deadline after his previous 'Liberation Day' tariffs in April resulted in a stock market panic.
Advertisement
His unusually high tariff rates, unveiled in April, led to recession fears — prompting Mr Trump to impose a 90-day negotiating period.
When he was unable to create enough trade deals with other countries, he extended the timeline and sent out letters to world leaders that simply listed rates, prompting a slew of hasty deals.
Mr Trump reached a deal with South Korea on Wednesday, and earlier with the European Union, Japan, Indonesia and the Philippines.
His commerce secretary, Howard Lutnick, said on Fox News Channel's Hannity that there were agreements with Cambodia and Thailand after they had agreed to a ceasefire to their border conflict.
Going into Thursday, wealthy Switzerland and Norway were still uncertain about their tariff rates. EU officials were waiting to complete a crucial document outlining how the framework to tax imported cars and other goods from the 27-member state bloc would operate.
Mr Trump had announced a deal on Sunday while he was in Scotland.
Mr Trump said as part of the agreement with Mexico that goods imported into the US would continue to face a 25% tariff that he has ostensibly linked to fentanyl trafficking.
He said cars would face a 25% tariff, while copper, aluminium and steel would be taxed at 50% during the negotiating period.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Reuters
2 minutes ago
- Reuters
Report: Sun moving to Boston in record $325M deal
August 2 - A Boston-based group led by Celtics minority governor Steve Pagliuca has reached a deal with the Mohegan Tribe to purchase the WNBA's Connecticut Sun and move the team to Boston, according to multiple reports Saturday. The Sun, who have called Connecticut home since 2003, could relocate as early as 2027. Pending approval from the WNBA, Pagliuca will reportedly shell out $325 million for the Sun, which would be the most ever paid for a women's sports franchise. His group will reportedly put down another $100 million for the team to build a new practice facility in Boston. Approval from the league could face some obstacles, as Boston has been eyed as a potential location for an expansion team. The WNBA has the right to force the Mohegan Tribe to sell to a buyer in Connecticut, according to the Boston Globe. The Boston Celtics reportedly have no issues sharing the TD Garden with a WNBA team. The Sun, who play at Mohegan Sun Arena in Uncasville, Conn., hold the league's worst record at 5-21 this season after making the playoffs in each of the eight previous campaigns. --Field Level Media
Telegraph
32 minutes ago
- Telegraph
Trump must change course on tariff madness
When America sneezes, the world catches a cold. With US tariff rates due to hit their highest level since the 1930s, President Donald Trump's vendetta against perceived one-sided trading relationships is set to deal a considerable blow to consumer spending. The result was a wave of red across financial markets, and further speculation on interest rate cuts. The first quarter of this year saw US firms ramping up imports to stockpile products ahead of tariff announcements. When these tariffs were paused, this position unwound slightly, and GDP rose again. With tariffs now back on the table, growth is likely to weaken. The effects of this uncertainty may already be visible in labour markets. Figures from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) showed 73,000 new jobs in July, well below expectations of 110,000. Figures for May and June, meanwhile, were revised downwards by a huge margin. Mr Trump can claim to have made several major correct calls in his presidency. His victories in the culture wars arguably helped to trigger a global preference cascade that shifted the tone of conversation meaningfully to the Right, while his evisceration of wasteful US bureaucracies set an example of what could be achieved by leaders willing to ignore the squealing from state employees. On European affairs, moreover, he has been resolute and correct, telling our leaders the home truths they work furiously to deny. On migration, defence spending and the costs of net zero, Mr Trump has time and again pointed towards common sense conclusions seemingly beyond the grasp of our elite class, and on Israel and Gaza he has been a rare voice of moral sense. His two great errors, however, have been appalling. The first was his disastrous attempt to force Kyiv into striking a deal with President Putin. This has failed, and Mr Trump has, belatedly, come around to realising the threat posed by Moscow. The second was the imposition of tariffs on friendly nations. As a tool for decoupling from China, there is merit to Mr Trump's view. Within the West, however, it is an error, and one which he is now beginning to compound with his decision to sack the 'Biden Appointee' responsible for overseeing the BLS, and his desire to replace the official with 'someone much more competent and qualified'. As the travails faced by Britain's Office for National Statistics demonstrate, high quality economic data is not a given. This knee-jerk firing, however, is no way to bring about improvements that financial markets can trust. Mr Trump risks, instead, further undermining confidence in the US economy – and his presidency.
The Guardian
33 minutes ago
- The Guardian
Big tech has spent $155bn on AI this year. It's about to spend hundreds of billions more
The US's largest companies have spent 2025 locked in a competition to spend more money than one another, lavishing $155bn on the development of artificial intelligence, more than the US government has spent on education, training, employment and social services in the 2025 fiscal year so far. Based on the most recent financial disclosures of Silicon Valley's biggest players, the race is about to accelerate to hundreds of billions in a single year. Over the past two weeks, Meta, Microsoft, Amazon, and Alphabet, Google's parent, have shared their quarterly public financial reports. Each disclosed that their year-to-date capital expenditure, a figure that refers to the money companies spend to acquire or upgrade tangible assets, already totals tens of billions. Capex, as the term is abbreviated, is a proxy for technology companies' spending on AI because the technology requires gargantuan investments in physical infrastructure, namely data centers, which require large amounts of power, water and expensive semiconductor chips. Google said during its most recent earnings call that its capital expenditure 'primarily reflects investments in servers and data centers to support AI'. Meta's year-to-date capital expenditure amounted to $30.7bn, doubling the $15.2bn figure from the same time last year, per its earnings report. For the most recent quarter alone, the company spent $17bn on capital expenditures, also double the same period in 2024, $8.5bn. Alphabet reported nearly $40bn in capex to date for the first two quarters of the current fiscal year, and Amazon reported $55.7bn. Microsoft said it would spend more than $30bn in the current quarter to build out the data centers powering its AI services. Microsoft CFO Amy Hood said the current quarter's capex would be at least 50% more than the outlay during the same period a year earlier and greater than the company's record capital expenditures of $24.2bn in the quarter to June. 'We will continue to invest against the expansive opportunity ahead,' Hood said. For the coming fiscal year, big tech's total capital expenditure is slated to balloon enormously, surpassing the already eye-popping sums of the previous year. Microsoft plans to unload about $100bn on AI in the next fiscal year, CEO Satya Nadella said Wednesday. Meta plans to spend between $66bn and $72bn. Alphabet plans to spend $85bn, significantly higher than its previous estimation of $75bn. Amazon estimated that its 2025 expenditure would come to $100bn as it plows money into Amazon Web Services, which analysts now expect to amount to $118bn. In total, the four tech companies will spend more than $400bn on capex in the coming year, according to the Wall Street Journal. The multibillion-dollar figures represent mammoth investments, which the Journal points out is larger than the European Union's quarterly spending on defense. However, the tech giants can't seem to spend enough for their investors. Microsoft, Google and Meta informed Wall Street analysts last quarter that their total capex would be higher than previously estimated. In the case of all three companies, investors were thrilled, and shares in each company soared after their respective earnings calls. Microsoft's market capitalization hit $4tn the day after its report. Even Apple, the cagiest of the tech giants, signaled that it would boost its spending on AI in the coming year by a major amount, either via internal investments or acquisitions. The company's quarterly capex rose to $3.46bn, up from $2.15bn during the same period last year. The iPhone maker reported blockbuster earnings Thursday, with rebounding iPhone sales and better-than-expected business in China, but it is still seen as lagging farthest behind on development and deployment of AI products among the tech giants. Tim Cook, Apple's CEO, said Thursday that the company was reallocating a 'fair number' of employees to focus on artificial intelligence and that the 'heart of our AI strategy' is to increase investments and 'embed' AI across all of its devices and platforms. Cook refrained from disclosing exactly how much Apple is spending, however. Sign up to TechScape A weekly dive in to how technology is shaping our lives after newsletter promotion 'We are significantly growing our investment, I'm not putting specific numbers behind that,' he said. Smaller players are trying to keep up with the incumbents' massive spending and capitalize on the gold rush. OpenAI announced at the end of the week of earnings that it had raised $8.3bn in investment, part of a planned $40bn round of funding, valuing the startup, whose ChatGPT chatbot kicked in 2022, at $300bn.
