Trumps "Reciprocal Tariffs" are a lie
The numbers he states are not the tariffs levied by the foreign power....those percents are derived from the trade balance
Trump is lying to you. Or he is too dim to understand the difference between a trade deficit and a tariff. It’s up to you to decide which.
Trump is blatantly lying about the tariffs that other nations impose on the US. His numbers are worse than made up—they are ridiculously mislabeled. The numbers that he wants you to believe are tariffs are actually derived from the trade balance between the target nation and the US.
The calculation per nation is (US imports - US exports) / US imports.
Here’s Vietnam: 136 billion US imports minus 13 billion US exports = 123 billion. 123 billion deficit / 136 billion imports = 90%.
Take Japan—Their tariffs on imports from the US are nowhere near 46%. Not even close! Except for 15% tariffs on agricultural products, they are closer to 0% if you have Most Favored Nation status, and 4% if you don’t. That’s according to our own International Trade Administration.
Donald Trump just stood on the White House lawn and told you that we need 24% reciprocal tariffs against Japan because Japan has 46% tariffs against us. That’s a lie. Where does that 46% come from? It’s our trade deficit with that country divided by our imports.
In 2024 we exported 80 billion in goods to Japan. We imported 148 billion in goods from them. 148 - 80 billion is a trade deficit of 68. What’s 68 / 148 ? 46%
Those numbers are straight from the US Census Bureau here.
I can’t take credit for this—it has started to climb on Reddit where I first spotted it and I’ve seen some hints on X, then checked trade.gov. Here’s a great image copied from @TradeDiversion (their numbers may differ a bit from the Census Bureau numbers I quoted, but it’s close).
Compare it all to Trump’s tariff claim and it lines up exactly. I didn’t check all of those but the spot checking I did matches up perfectly.
Note Trump’s own table below, specifically labeled “Tariffs Charged to the USA,” which those numbers are definitely not. Trump is lying to you. Or he is too dim to understand the difference between a trade deficit and a tariff. It’s up to you to decide which.
