Trump announces 25% tariffs on Japan and South Korea
US President Donald Trump waves to the media after exiting Air Force One (Jacquelyn Martin/AP)
The letters warned them to not retaliate by increasing their own import taxes, or else the Trump administration would further increase tariffs.
'If for any reason you decide to raise your Tariffs, then, whatever the number you choose to raise them by, will be added onto the 25% that we charge,' Mr Trump wrote in the letters to Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba and South Korean President Lee Jae-myung.
The letters were not the final word from Mr Trump on tariffs, so much as another episode in a global economic drama in which he has placed himself at the centre.
His moves have raised fears that economic growth would slow to a trickle, if not make the US and other nations more vulnerable to a recession.
But Mr Trump is confident that tariffs are necessary to bring back domestic manufacturing and fund the tax cuts he signed into law last Friday.
He mixed his sense of aggression with a willingness to still negotiate, signalling the likelihood that the drama and uncertainty would continue and that few things are ever final with Mr Trump.
Imports from Myanmar and Laos would be taxed at 40%, South Africa at 30% and Kazakhstan, Malaysia and Tunisia at 25%.
Shoppers browse electric rice cookers imported from Japan and South Korea at a US department store (Nam Y Huh/AP)
Mr Trump placed the word 'only' before revealing the rate in his letters to the foreign leaders, implying that he was being generous with his tariffs.
Mr Trump still has outstanding differences on trade with the European Union and India, among other trading partners.
Tougher talks with China are on a longer time horizon in which imports from that nation are being taxed at 55%.
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