https://ustr.gov/issue-areas/reciprocal-tariff-calculations
"While individually computing the trade deficit effects of tens of thousands of tariff, regulatory, tax and other policies in each country is complex, if not impossible, their combined effects can be proxied by computing the tariff level consistent with driving bilateral trade deficits to zero. "
No attempt to justify the blanket 10% tariff on countries that the US has small trade deficits, or any trade surplus, with.
Trade deficits exist when one country has attractive goods another wants to buy. That could be because the country is relatively poor (eg Vietnam) and people there will work for less. It could be because their products are high quality and in demand (eg Ozempic from Denmark). It could be because the country has a younger population, more in work, than the importing country which has more retirees with money who want to buy stuff, not work and sell it.
To try and claim that trade economics is the entire world "ripping off" the USA is the dumbest, most dishonest, most damaging economic act a major country has ever attempted. The Trump Global Depression, if he is not stopped, will join the Great Depression as a defining moment in world history.
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