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ARTICLE · 11 APRIL 2025

Reprieve Or Escalation? "Reciprocal" And Automobile-Specific Tariffs

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On April 2, 2025, President Trump issued an Executive Order imposing "reciprocal" tariffs on almost all its trading partners, and tariffs on all automobile imports.

CanadaInternational Law
Rambod Behboodi
Rambod Behboodi
Graeme Hamilton
Graeme Hamilton
Nasra Moumin
Nasra Moumin
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On April 2, 2025, President Trump issued an Executive Order imposing "reciprocal" tariffs on almost all its trading partners, and tariffs on all automobile imports.

New U.S. tariff measures

As expected, the announced reciprocal tariffs are country-specific, built on a global baseline of 10%. (For the time being, Canada and Mexico, which are subject to a specific tariff regime, will not be subject to the baseline.)

The country-specific tariffs were expected to be a blend of a number of different elements. In the end, the US administration took a different tack; starting with the presumption that the quantum of a trading partner's trade deficit must necessarily arise from a combination of tariffs and non-tariff barriers, it used this trade deficit to arrive at a "reciprocal" tariff.

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