BBC News, New York
President Donald Trump has unveiled plans for sweeping new import taxes on all goods entering the US, in a watershed moment for global trade.
The plan sets a baseline tariff on all imports of at least 10%, consistent with a proposal Trump made on the campaign last year.
Items from countries that the White House described as the “worst offenders”, including the European Union and China would face higher rates for what Trump said was payback for unfair trade policies.
Trump’s move breaks with decades of American policy embracing free trade, and analysts said it was likely to lead to higher prices in the US and slower growth in the US and around the world.
The White House said officials would start charging the 10% tariffs on 5 April, with the higher duties starting on 9 April.
“It’s our declaration of economic independence,” Trump said in the White House Rose Garden against a backdrop of US flags.
He argued that other countries were taking advantage of the US by charging high tariffs and erecting other trade barriers against American exports.
Declaring a national emergency, the Republican president said the US had for more than five decades been “looted, pillaged, raped and plundered by nations near and far, both friend and foe alike”.
“Today we are standing up for the American worker and we are finally putting America first,” he said, calling it “one of the most important days, in my opinion, in American history.”
On the campaign trail last year, Trump called for new tariffs that he said would raise money for the government and boost manufacturing, promising a new age of US prosperity.
He has spent weeks previewing Wednesday’s announcement, which follows other orders raising tariffs on imports from China, foreign cars, steel and aluminium and 25% on some goods from Mexico and Canada.
The White House said the latest changes would not change anything for Mexico and Canada, two of America’s closest trading partners.
Other allies will also face tariffs, including 10% for the UK and 20% for the European Union, said Trump.
Tariffs on goods from China will jump a further 34%, adding to an existing 20% levy, while it will be 24% for Japan, and 26% on India.
Some of the highest rates will be levied on smaller countries, with goods from the southern African nation of Lesotho facing 50%, while Vietnam and Cambodia will be hit with 46% and 49% respectively.
The latter two have both seen a rush of investment in recent years, as firms shifted supply chains away from China following Trump’s first term.
The baseline tariffs will apply to more than 100 countries, according to a White House fact sheet, of which some 60 will face a higher “reciprocal” rate.
The White House said the new policy would account for factors that they said also fuelled trade imbalances, such as other countries’ currency devaluation and high Value Added Tax (VAT).
Trump also confirmed that a 25% tax on imports of all foreign-made cars, which he announced last week, would begin from midnight.
And he signed an order ending tax-free treatment for small packages, while repeating plans to hit specific items that were exempt from Wednesday’s action, such as copper and pharmaceuticals, with separate tariffs.
Together the moves will bring effective tariff rates in the US to levels not seen in decades, potentially setting the stage for Americans facing higher prices on clothing, European wine, bicycles, toys and thousands of other items.
Gustavo Flores-Macias, professor of government and public policy at Cornell University, called it a “dramatic transformation” of the international trade order, which the US had helped to create after World War Two.
“We’re seeing that system unravelling,” he said.
The stock market was closed for trading when Trump made his announcement.
But in after-market trading shares in major American companies sank sharply.
Apple, which relies heavily on China and on Taiwan, which is facing tariffs of 32%, sank more than 7%.
Amazon was down more than 6%, while shares in Walmart dropped more than 4%.
