President Donald Trump said the new prices he should announce this week will strike all countries, not just those with the largest commercial imbalances with the United States.
The comments arise while he is preparing to unveil a massive list of import taxes on Wednesday, in what he called the “Liberation Day” of America.
The measures will come in addition to the rates already imposed by Washington in aluminum, steel and vehicles, as well as increased samples from all goods from China.
The equity markets in Asia fell in early discussions on Monday while investors are concerned about the impact of prices on the global economy.
“You would start with all countries,” Trump told journalists on Air Force One.
“Essentially, all the countries we are talking about.”
The president’s latest comments came despite last week suggesting that he could reduce his price plans and impose prices in certain cases at lower rates than those in the countries that charge in the United States.
The White House economy advisor Kevin Hassett also recently told Fox Business Channel that prices would focus on 10 to 15 countries that had the worst trade deficits with the United States, but did not appoint them.
Trump considers prices as a way to protect the American economy of unfair competition and a negotiation program to obtain better commercial terms for America.
During the weekend, Trump advisers echoed from the point of view that the planned prices could raise billions of dollars and help create jobs in the United States.
His best commercial advisor Pete Navarro said that he said that the prices would increase.
The tax on all car imports could raise $ 100 billion (77.3 billion pounds sterling) on an exchange worth 240 billion dollars, said Navarro. All planned prices could raise $ 600 billion, or about a fifth of the value of imports of total goods in the United States, he added.
An information sheet from the White House published last week suggested that a 10% rate on each import could create nearly 3 million American jobs.
But concerns about a trade war are disturbing markets and fear a recession in the United States.
Monday morning in Asia, the Japanese Nikkei 225 reference was more than 3% lower, the ASX 200 in Australia dropped by 1.6% and the Kospi in South Korea was around 2% lower.
All this increases the challenges of all countries trying to conclude agreements with the United States on its commercial policies, including the United Kingdom.
But other jurisdictions, such as the EU and Canada, have already declared that they were preparing a range of commercial reprisals.
In addition, Trump said that an agreement with the Chinese owner of Tiktok, Bytedance, to sell the application would be agreed before a deadline on Saturday.
He set the deadline of April 5 in January for a short video platform to find a non-Chinese buyer or face a ban in the United States for national security reasons.
It had to take effect this month to comply with a law adopted under the Biden administration.
