Liberation Day Tariff

Extracted Attributes

• Termed as

  Liberation Day

• Announced by

  U.S. President Donald Trump

• Primary Goal

  Rectify U.S. trade deficit, promote onshoring

• Formalized by

  Executive Order 14257, Executive Order 14256

• Announcement Date

  2025-04-02

• Economists' Assessment

  Disputed 'reciprocal' characterization, often exceeded trading partners' tariffs, based on simplistic and flawed economic reasoning

• Legal Basis (EO 14256)

  Further Amendment to Duties Addressing the Synthetic Opioid Supply Chain in the People's Republic of China as Applied to Low-Value Imports

• Legal Basis (EO 14257)

  International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA)

• Estimated Annual Revenue

  $226 billion

• Initial Baseline Tariff Rate

  10%

• Trump Administration Characterization

  Reciprocal measures

• Initial Baseline Tariff Effective Date

  2025-04-05

• Average U.S. Tariff Rate (as of 2025-06-16)

  15.8% (highest since 1930s)

Timeline

• U.S. President Donald Trump announces 'Liberation Day' tariffs, signing Executive Orders 14257 and 14256, declaring a national emergency over the U.S. trade deficit and invoking IEEPA. (Source: Summary, Wikipedia)

  2025-04-02

• A 10% baseline tariff on imports from nearly all countries takes effect. (Source: Wikipedia, Web Search)

  2025-04-05

• Higher tariff rates for countries with significant trade deficits were initially set to begin, but were postponed for 90 days due to a global market crash. (Source: Summary, Wikipedia)

  2025-04-09

• The U.S. and the United Kingdom reach a limited trade deal. (Source: Web Search)

  2025-05-08

• The United States Court of International Trade rules that Trump exceeded his authority in imposing tariffs under IEEPA and orders them vacated. (Source: Summary, Wikipedia)

  2025-05-28

• Announcement of a trade deal between the U.S. and Vietnam. (Source: Web Search)

  2025-07-02

• Announcement that tariff increases will reportedly be delayed until August 1, extending the initial 90-day pause. (Source: Web Search)

  2025-07-06

• New end date for the administration's pause on 'Liberation Day' tariffs, with new country-specific rates taking effect for some nations. (Source: Web Search)

  2025-08-01

• Temporary agreement with China expires. (Source: Wikipedia)

  2025-08-12

Liberation Day tariffs

The Liberation Day tariffs are a broad package of import duties announced by U.S. President Donald Trump on April 2, 2025—a date he called "Liberation Day". In a White House Rose Garden ceremony, Trump signed Executive Order 14257, Regulating Imports With a Reciprocal Tariff to Rectify Trade Practices That Contribute to Large and Persistent Annual United States Goods Trade Deficits. This order declared a national emergency over the United States' trade deficit and invoked the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) to authorize sweeping tariffs on foreign imports. Trump also signed Executive Order 14256, Further Amendment to Duties Addressing the Synthetic Opioid Supply Chain in the People's Republic of China as Applied to Low-Value Imports, which closed the de minimis exemption for China, further escalating the China–United States trade war. Executive Order 14257 imposed a 10% baseline tariff on imports from nearly all countries beginning April 5, with higher rates applied to countries with which the United States carried the largest trade deficits starting April 9. The Trump administration called the measures "reciprocal", asserting they were intended to mirror and counteract foreign trade barriers imposed on U.S. exports. Trade analysts broadly rejected this characterization, noting that the tariffs often exceeded those imposed by trading partners and included countries with which the U.S. had a trade surplus. Economists also said that the formula used to calculate the "reciprocal" tariffs was overly simplistic and based on flawed economic reasoning. The "Liberation Day" tariff announcement led to a global market crash. In response, the White House postponed the April 9 tariff increases for 90 days to allow time for negotiation. By the end of this period, the U.S. reached agreements with the U.K.and Vietnam and a temporary agreement, expiring August 12, with China. The U.S. postponed the deadline for negotiations again to August 1, 2025. On May 28, 2025, the United States Court of International Trade ruled Trump had overstepped his authority in imposing tariffs under the IEEPA and ordered that the "Liberation Day" tariffs be vacated. The United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit issued a stay while it considered the administration's appeal, allowing the tariffs to remain in effect.

Web Search Results

• "Liberation Day" Tariff Timeline - Publications

  July 6, 2025: Announcement that tariff increases reportedly will be delayed until August 1. What comes next? The Trump Administration should seek to avoid a replay of its Liberation Day tariff debacle. Even if it maintains its 10% nonreciprocal universal tariff and avoids additional country-specific tariffs, Americans will continue to pay historically high tariffs. According to the Yale Budget Lab, as of June 16, the average U.S. tariff rate was 15.8%, the highest rate since the 1930s. [...] May 8, 2025: The United States and the United Kingdom reach a limited trade deal. Under the deal, the United States maintains 10% tariffs on UK imports, in addition to additional tariffs and quotas on UK cars, steel, and aluminum, and the UK makes no commitments regarding the possible imposition of discriminatory digital services taxes on U.S. tech providers. [...] July 2, 2025: Announcement of a trade deal with Vietnam. The United States will reportedly impose a 20% tariff on imports from Vietnam, and U.S. goods will enter Vietnam tariff-free. High U.S. tariffs on Vietnam will reduce the ability of that country to buy U.S. exports. It is not yet clear whether Vietnam made any commitments to remove discriminatory digital services provisions affecting U.S. tech providers.

• Trump Tariffs: Pause On 'Liberation Day' Rates Extended ... - Forbes

  South Korea’s 25% tariff rate is the same rate that Trump initially levied on the country’s goods during his April 2 “Liberation Day” announcement—which has been temporarily lowered to 10%—while Japan’s rate is one percent higher than the 24% tariffs Trump initially imposed on the country’s goods. [...] The president continued posting similar letters to other foreign heads of government from Europe, Asia and Africa throughout the day, imposing the steepest tariff rates of 40% on Myanmar and Laos. Aug. 1 will be the new end date for the administration’s pause on its “Liberation Day” tariffs, with White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt saying Monday that Trump will sign an executive order pushing the deadline back. [...] ByAlison Durkee # Trump Extends ‘Liberation Day’ Tariff Delay As He Rolls Out New Rates On 14 Countries ByAlison Durkee, Forbes Staff. ## Topline The White House announced Monday that President Donald Trump is slated to sign an order delaying his 90-day tariff pause by another month, as the president began announcing a suite of new tariff rates on foreign goods, sending letters to countries including Japan, South Korea and Malaysia that impose tariff rates of 25% or higher.

• Liberation Day tariffs - Wikipedia

  On May 8, the President announced his first post-"Liberation Day" trade deal with the United Kingdom. The U.S. reduced some Section 232 tariffs, but the 10% tariff imposed under the IEEPA remained in place. The following day, Trump stated that the 10% baseline would remain for all nations unless the United States received an “exceptional” offer. [...] Trump unveiled a two-tier tariff structure: a baseline 10% tariff applied to imports from all countries not subject to other sanctions, and additional country-specific "reciprocal" tariffs ranging between 11% and 50% for the countries with which the U.S. had the greatest trade deficits. The administration asserted that trade deficits were representative of unfair trade practices, an idea disputed by economists. The 10% baseline tariff would begin at 12:01 a.m. EDT on April 5, 2025 (04:01 UTC), [...] The last agreement reached during the pause was with Vietnam, which cut tariffs on US exports to 0%. The US agreed to implement a 20% tariff on Vietnamese goods and a 40% tariff on transshipped goods, compared to the 46% it had threatened on "Liberation Day". ## After the pause Aug 1 "reciprocal tariff" rates

• “Liberation Day” Tariffs Explained - CSIS

  On April 2, 2025—a date President Trump proclaimed “Liberation Day”—the administration announced the most sweeping tariff hike since the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act, the 1930 law best remembered for triggering a global trade war and deepening the Great Depression. [...] A universal 10 percent tariff on all imported goods will take effect on April 5, followed by further tariffs on dozens of named countries, set to begin on April 9. Canada and Mexico are largely exempted from this round of tariffs, at least for the time being, and previously announced sectoral tariffs on steel, aluminum, and autos, along with anticipated tariffs on semiconductors, pharmaceuticals, copper, and lumber, will be assessed separately and not stacked onto the new tariffs. [...] To reverse-engineer that figure, analysts initially looked to last year’s roughly $3 trillion in goods imports and applied a flat 20 percent tariff across the board. Our own modeling, using that same uniform 20 percent rate, produced a much lower estimate—$226 billion in annual revenue.

• See the full list of reciprocal tariffs by country from Trump's ...

  President Trump on April 2 announced so-called reciprocal tariffs on imports from about 90 nations that are above a 10% across-the-board tax applied to all imports to the U.S. Describing the announcement as "Liberation Day," the president said the new taxes are needed to erase a trade deficit between the U.S. and other countries, ranging from China to the European Union.