The penguins have been offered some relief. The people of Switzerland, Laos and Syria, not so much.
This is the unlikely that the winners and losers of the finished list of finished rates of President Donald Trump, that governments, markets and companies around the world were fighting to make sense of Friday.
Some countries, such as Canada and South Africa, reacted with serious disappointment, warning that Trump’s executive order could cause job losses worldwide and increase costs for Americans. For others, the damage was not as bad as expected, with some capable of drawing agreements before their deadline, and others expect one to hit one in the future.
The president had already made confusion and alarm when presenting his list of rates for the first time in April.
Many analysts questioned, for example, why he was imposing a 10% tax in Heard and McDonald, two anthartic advances populated only by penguins, or slapping a colossal rate of 50% in the impoverished nation of southern Africa of Lesotho.
This week’s finished list caused postponement but also dismay, often with little or no explanation.
The toughest import taxes were slapped to Syria (41%), Laos and Myanmar (40%), three relatively poor nations with, in the best case, modest commercial relations with Washington. And Iraq, Serbia (both 35%) and Algeria (30%) were also found subject to Trump’s executive pen.
(Brazil faces its own 50% separate rate as punishment for what Trump says it is a “witch hunt” against its former president and right -wing ally, Jair Bolsonaro, accused of consigning a coup d’etat).
On Thursday in another place, Lesotho’s rate was reduced to 15%, but not before great damage was already caused. The initial rate saw American buyers stop orders, thousands of people lost their jobs and the government declared a state of disaster.
Meanwhile, the Heard and McDonald Islands and its inhabitants of harmful birds dodged the rate Trump threatened to impose Australia, owner of the islands, and remained at the 10% rate announced for the first time in April.
It is “difficult to know if there is any logic” to decipher why some countries have been beaten both while others were saved, said David Henig, a trade expert from the European Center for International Political Economy, a group of experts based in Brussels.
Without a detailed explanation of the White House, Henig told NBC News, the calculations were probably based on the previous formula that Washington used that they placed the largest tariffs in the countries with the largest commercial surpluses.
When announcing the rates on Thursday, Trump said that these surpluses “constitute an unusual and extraordinary threat to national security and the economy of the United States.” (Many economists do not agree that the United States’s commercial deficit is inherently bad, and their tariffs are subject to an ongoing legal fight that will probably end in the Supreme Court).
While the International Romoto on Lesotho meant that it was given a respite, other nations may have seen its maintained or even increased tariffs because “they were not the most unjustly unjustly treated developing countries,” said Henig.
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comments from NBC News on its reason.
It is not only about developing or dark places that feel the heat of Trump’s taxes.
Switzerland, one of the richest nations in terms of Gross Domestic Product per capita, woke up on Friday to discover that he had been slapped with a colossal rate of 39%, which his government pointed out with “great regret.”
This could mean problems for Swiss chocolate and luxury watches, for which the United States is the largest market, with actions for the PLC Swiss clocks that falls 8.5% after the news on Friday.
India also caught attention as an American ally with a large rate of 25%, but rejected any suggestion of a crack, with the spokesman of the Randhir Jaiswal Ministry saying that the most populous nation in the world was “sure that the relationship will continue to advance.”
Meanwhile, in Southeast Asia, where exports to the United States have increased as manufacturers change the production of China, the reaction was generally relief.
Thailand and Cambodia, who just agreed to a high fire after a five -day border conflict that killed more than 40 people, welcomed their 19% rate as a “gain” and “great news”, while Malaysia described its own rate as a “positive result.” Cambodia had been threatened with 49%.
The consistency creates a level playing field for the Governments of Southeast Asia, with Indonesia and the Philippines at the same rate, and 20% for Vietnam, after having worried that Trump’s tariffs could favor some countries over others.
Taiwan, a technological center that has a large commercial surplus with the USA. President Lai Ching-you said Friday that the 20% rate was “temporary” and that his government expected to negotiate a lower number.
The final rates between the United States and China are still in the air, the two largest economies in the world, which shook the world markets this spring while imposeding the gravadms spiral of Tit by Otre before both parties agreed the greatest pause until August 12.
The Treasury Secretary, Scott Besent, said after meeting with Chinese commercial officials this week that a possible extension of that pause could not be confirmed until Trump signed it.
“China’s position on the rates is consistent and clear,” said the spokesman of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Guo Jiakun, to a daily press conference on Friday. “There are no winners in rates wars or commercial wars.”
Alexander Smith reported from London and Jennifer Jett reported from Hong Kong.
