Trump has vowed sweeping tariffs: What comes next?

This will not be the first time Trump has used tariffs to exert pressure on other countries. WASHINGTON - US president-elect Donald Trump says “tariff” is the most beautiful word in the dictionary – and the Republican’s second term promises sweeping measures on all US$3 trillion (S$3.99 trillion) worth of US imported goods.

This will not be the first time Trump has used tariffs to exert pressure on other countries. What should households and businesses expect? What did he pledge? Trump has promised at least a 10 per cent tariff on all imports, and a higher level of 60 per cent or more on Chinese goods – stepping up levies on Beijing and others. The aim, he said, was to target countries that had been “ripping us off for years” and to lower US trade deficits.

Trump has also suggested tariffs above 200 per cent on vehicles from Mexico, saying this was to protect US auto firms. In Pennsylvania this week, Trump threatened to take further aim at China and Mexico if they did not stop deadly fentanyl from entering the country. Experts note, however, that when Washington imposes tariffs on imports, it is US businesses who pay the fees to the government.

Can he do it? “The risk is significant,” said Mr Scott Lincicome, vice president of general economics at the Cato Institute. Laws exist that “allow the president to apply tariffs unilaterally for extremely broad and discretionary reasons,” he told AFP. This includes national security justifications, he said, point.