President Donald Trump announced on Thursday a new August 7 deadline for his new, steeper tariffs that were initially set to take effect on Friday.
In an executive order issued just before the August 1 deadline, Trump outlined plans to issue a higher import tariff rate of 10 percent to 41 percent for 69 trading partners. Countries not mentioned in the proposal will receive a 10 percent import tax.
Rates include many Canadian goods taxed at 35 percent, Brazil at 50 percent, India at 25 percent, Taiwan at 20 percent, and Switzerland at 39 percent.
The August 7 deadline will give U.S. Customs and Border Protection time to update the tariff schedule. Some countries have struck deals with Trump that reduced their tariff rates since the president’s “Liberation Day” trade agenda was announced in April, including the European Union, U.K., Japan, South Korea, Indonesia and more.
Eleven of America’s 15 top trading partners have reached deals so far.
“Customs and tariff revenue have already totaled more than $150 billion since President Trump took office, leading to the first June budget surplus in nearly a decade,” White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said Thursday. “Those revenue will skyrocket even further starting tomorrow, when new reciprocal tariff rates take effect.”
Other countries have received timeline extensions to continue negotiations with the Trump administration. Trump gave Mexico a 90-day negotiation window this week to continue trade discussions. Mexico’s tariff rate will remain at 25 percent during that timeframe, less than the 30 percent rate Trump had threatened the country with before.
“We avoided the tariff increase announced for tomorrow and we got 90 days to build a long-term agreement through dialogue,” Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum said this week.
China’s negotiation deadline was also extended, to August 12.
Trump has framed tariff negotiations as a way to counterbalance the “unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and economy of the United States” posed by the U.S.’s “large and persistent annual goods trade deficits.” A “continued lack of reciprocity in our bilateral trade relationships and the impact of foreign trading partners’ disparate tariff rates and non-tariff barriers on U.S. exports” caused Trump to reassess and steepen the tariffs initially planned for August 1, he said in an executive order.
Legal questions over Trump’s use of the 1977 statute the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, which he has used to impose tariffs, have been playing out in court since May. After the New York-based U.S. Court of International Trade ruled against the administration in May, the White House appealed the decision.
On Thursday, the Washington, D.C.-based Federal Circuit Court of Appeals heard arguments in the case, which is expected to reach the Supreme Court. Some judges expressed skepticism, like the trade court, that Trump has properly exercised his authority under IEEPA.