On April 2, 2025, President Donald J. Trump declared a national emergency under provisions of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA). The IEEPA allows the US president to unilaterally respond to an unusual and exceptional threat to national security, foreign policy, or the economy, so long as that threat originates outside the United States. The unusual and exceptional threat identified by President Trump was the “large and persistent US trade deficit,” which in 2024 had reached $918.4 billion in goods and services. Trump claimed that other countries were “cheating” on international trade and had been “robbing the US blind” — under a global trading system that was established under US political leadership and economic hegemony.
President Trump responded to this alleged national emergency by imposing a 10 percent base tariff on imports from nearly every country in the world. The most onerous tariffs were imposed on countries in Asia, including China (54 percent), Vietnam (45 percent), Laos (48 percent), Sri Lanka, (44 percent), Bangladesh (37 percent), Cambodia (49 percent), and Thailand (36 percent). The European Union was hit with a blanket 20 percent tariff, while Mexico and Canada were subject to separate tariffs of 25 percent on automobiles and parts, steel, and aluminum that were deemed noncompliant with the US-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) free trade treaty (formerly NAFTA).
Trump’s ambitious goal was nothing less than bringing an end to the global economic and trade regime that had been carefully and systematically liberalized (and Americanized) by the United States and its Western allies, beginning with the twenty-three-nation General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) in 1948 and culminating with…
Auteur: Clyde W. Barrow
