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Taiwan laptops, Italy wine, frozen shrimp from India, Nike Vietnam and Irish butter shoes.
These products are found in the houses of the United States, a testimony of the durable role of the United States as a free trade defender and its position as the most lucrative market for goods around the world.
They are now among the vast categories of goods subject to additional taxes after President Trump, on Wednesday, imposed universal tariffs on all commercial partners of the United States, as well as heavier additional duties in 60 countries that he considered the “worst criminals” of unfair commercial practices.
In an acute change from decades of commercial policy, Trump instituted a baseline duty of 10 percent in all goods imported to the United States. In addition, other nations will be charged a so -called reciprocal tariff at an even higher rate next week.
For the European Union and China, the two largest US business partners, the White House imposed tariffs of 20 percent and 34 percent. The additional tax in China will be added to a 20 percent rate previously imposed by Trump.
Even close allies like Japan and South Korea were not saved. Nor countries like Australia and Brazil that buy more from the United States than they sell.
The announcement, which Trump had acclaimed as the “day of liberation” of the United States, sent shock waves worldwide and raised the spectrum of a global commercial war. Securities markets fell into the news, since investors were surprised by the size and scope of rates.
In less than three months, Trump has spoken tariffs on Canada, Mexico and China along with import tariffs on steel, aluminum, cars and car parts. Wednesday’s executive order included exemptions for semiconductors, pharmaceutical products and wood. But analysts think those are not repressed; They are products below to be attacked.
Allies and adversaries are struggling to make sense of Trump’s tariff alluvion, which has raised import tariffs from the United States to their highest levels in more than a century and has not shown signs of giving in. Some threatened to retaliate. Others openly pressed the negotiations, while some silently pressed the concessions through the back channels.
China accused the United States of “unilateral harassment”, committing to take “firm countermeasures to safeguard their own rights and interests.” South Korea convened an emergency work group and promised to “pour all government resources to overcome a commercial crisis.” In Brazil, the government of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva said he was evaluating retaliation measures.
In an early speech on Thursday morning, Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission, said the global economy will suffer “enormously” from rates. Upon urging the negotiation, he said that the block is preparing more countermeasures in addition to the retaliation tariffs that he had already prepared for the previous tax on foreign steel and aluminum.
Asia was particularly affected by Trump’s plan. Vietnam, beneficiary of companies that transfer China’s production during Trump’s first presidency, received a 46 percent tax. Taiwan, Thailand and Indonesia received import tariffs of more than 30 percent. The White House put a 26 percent tariff on India imports.
For decades, exports have served as a path to economic prosperity for the developing Asian countries that emerge from the conflict, crisis or poverty. The latest rates punished countries like Taiwan and Japan that have managed to modernize their economies through trade, and also obscured the perspectives of poorest nations such as Cambodia and Bangladesh still looking to follow that route.
Cambodia, a clothing and footwear producer, was beaten with a 49 percent rate. The United States is the largest export market in the country.
“As a small country, we just want to survive,” said Sok Eysan, a spokesman for the Fiesta del Pueblo rulo de Cambodia.
Trump has blamed the sale of economic goods of these countries for the void of the United States manufacturing sector. But they have also helped to keep inflation at bay, reducing prices for US consumers.
Sarang Shidore, director of the South Global Program of the Institute of State Responsible for Quincy in Washington, DC, said that tariffs would affect several developing countries, while encouraging much of the world to move more quickly towards an order without the United States in its center.
“When it comes to trade, we are in a multipolar world, and there are alternative markets. Although, of course, there will be pain costs and transactions in diversification,” he said.
Anthony Albanese, Australia’s prime minister, said his country would not respond with retaliation rates, promising that Australia would not “join a race towards the bottom that leads at higher prices and slower growth.”
In Japan, officials and trade experts were taken by surprise by the size of the new rate that the country will face: 24 percent. It was particularly discordant since Japan’s average rate on non -agricultural goods is among the lowest worldwide. Japan called the “extremely unfortunate” rate and promised to continue looking for an exemption.
Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba has pledged to increase Japanese investment to approximately $ 1 billion, focusing on buying more products in the United States such as liquefied natural gas.
Speaking before the last tariffs, Takeshi Niinami, executive director of Agentory Holdings, a Japanese drink giant known for premium whiskey brands, said he believed that he believed that rates could be negotiated because Japan is the largest foreign investor in the United States.
“A chaos period can occur,” he said. “But ultimately, the situation will stabilize.”
Require, a data analysis firm, estimated that Trump’s ads would result in $ 600 billion new US rates per year. Most of the tax would come from 10 countries, with Chinese exports that represent a quarter of additional tariffs at $ 149 billion. Vietnamese goods would face $ 63 billion, Taiwanese products $ 37 billion and Japanese exports of $ 36 billion in rates. The combined German and Irish products would face $ 41 billion in additional encumbrances.
During Trump’s first presidency, technology companies moved some production to Vietnam to protect against a possible commercial war with China. A third of Vietnam’s exports are now electronic.
Apple moved the manufacture of Airpods, Watches and iPads in recent years to Vietnam. An iPhone production to India also changed, after years of trusting only Chinese factories.
South Korean conglomerate Samsung Electronics has invested more than $ 20 billion in Vietnam since it began opening factories there almost two decades ago. Now produces more goods in Vietnam than in China. Last year, it produced products of approximately $ 70 billion in its Vietnamese factories, most of the export.
Trump’s policies also complicate decisions for smaller American companies. Brenden McMorrow, co -founder of Move2Play, a manufacturer of t -shirts based in Torrance, California, said the company built all its products in China since it started about nine years ago. But he began to consider factories in Vietnam or India to protect against Chinese import tariffs.
In Vietnam, he discovered that factories administered by Chinese companies that use China materials were not much cheaper. On the other hand, he decided to test a manufacturing test of one of his toys in India, a decision that Mr. McMorrow said he looks better with the high rate imposed on Vietnam. He studied if he could manufacture in the United States, but said the costs were approximately five times higher than in China.
And despite the highest cost of tariffs, it does not see US production as more viable now.
“I don’t think it makes sense to invest in trying to do much of this manufacturing in the United States if the next president enters and simply invests the course in all these rates, then you will be in a terrible place,” he said. “It makes more sense to stick to where we are currently manufacturing and not make great risky movements.”
Damien Cave, Jack Nicas, Victoria Kim, Alex Travelli, Choe Sang-Hun, Sui-Lee Wee and David Pierson Contributed reports.