Trump declares a national emergency, imposes tariffs in full, sets a 10% "minimum benchmark tariff", and imposes higher taxes on countries with the largest trade deficit in the United States

Source: Wall Street News

After the U.S. stock market on Wednesday, April 2, Eastern Time, according to Xinhua News Agency, US President Trump signed two executive orders on so-called "reciprocal tariffs" at the White House, announcing the United States to set up a 10% "minimum benchmark tariff" on trading partners and impose higher tariffs on certain trading partners.

According to CCTV News, Trump said the United States will calculate all relevant taxes, non-tariff barriers and other forms of comprehensive tax rates for countries that pose a great threat to the United States. Tariffs will not be completely equal, and the United States will charge about half of the fees to those countries.

According to CCTV, the White House issued a statement saying that Trump declared a national emergency on Wednesday to enhance the United States' competitive advantage, protect US sovereignty, and strengthen US national and economic security.

CCTV quoted the White House's statement as saying that Trump will impose a 10% "benchmark tariff" on all countries, which will take effect at 0:01 am on April 5. In addition, Trump will impose personalized higher "reciprocal tariffs" on countries with the largest U.S. trade deficit, which will take effect at 0:01 am on April 9, and all other countries will continue to comply with the original 10% tariff benchmark.

According to the chart released by the White House, the United States will impose a 10% tariff on goods imported from the United Kingdom, Australia, Brazil, Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Kuwait, a 17% tariff on Israeli goods, a 20% tariff on EU goods, a 24% tariff on Japanese goods, a 25% tariff on Korean goods, a 26% tariff on Indian goods, a 36% tariff on Thai goods, a 39% tariff on Iraqi goods, a 46% tariff on Vietnamese goods, and a 49% tariff on Cambodian goods, with the highest tax rate.

CCTV mentioned that the aforementioned White House statement stated that some goods will not be subject to "reciprocal tariffs", including steel and aluminum products that are already subject to Section 232 tariffs, automobiles and auto parts, goods that may be subject to future Section 232 tariffs, and energy and certain other minerals that the United States does not have. In addition, gold bars, copper, pharmaceuticals, semiconductors and wood products are not subject to "reciprocal tariffs".

The statement also stated that for Canada and Mexico, goods complying with the USMCA will continue to receive tariff exemptions.

The Trump administration said Canada and Mexico will temporarily exempt 10% of benchmark tariffs and reciprocal tariffs for specific countries.

According to CCTV, Trump also announced on Wednesday that he would impose a 25% tariff on imported cars. Trump said the 25% tariff on cars will take effect on April 3.

After Trump spoke about the benchmark tariff rate and the specific tariffs faced by countries, U.S. stock futures fell. After the U.S. stock market, Nasdaq 100 futures fell more than 3%, S&P 500 futures fell nearly 2%, and Dow futures fell about 1%. At the beginning of the Asia-Pacific session, the decline in stock index futures further expanded, with Nasdaq 100 futures falling by more than 4%, S&P 500 futures falling by more than 3%, and Dow futures falling by more than 2%.

The foreign exchange market responded strongly. The euro's gains expanded rapidly first, and then fell. The euro, which is at the 1.0860 line, rose by 1.0920 against the US dollar at one point, and rose by about 1% during the day, and then gave up more than half of the gains.

The spot trading price of Bitcoin (BTC) once surged to US$88,000, setting a new high since March 25, up more than US$4,000 from the day-to-day low of European stocks and up more than 5%. Later, it gave up most of the gains and returned to below US$86,000, and fell below US$85,300, and fell more than US$3,000 at one point.

Spot gold "flashed" in the short term, with the 3125 US dollar plunging to nearly 3105 US dollars, and then falling more than 0.1% during the day. It soon turned higher, once rising above US$3140, setting a new daily high, and rising nearly 1% during the day.

COMEX June gold futures also "flashed" first, then rebounded, and once rose above $3,200 after the session, setting a record intraday record set by US stocks on Thursday, up nearly 1.8% from Tuesday's closing.

US Treasury prices reversed in a V-shaped manner, and yields rose first and then fell. The yield on the 10-year benchmark US Treasury bond first rose to 4.23%, setting a new daily high above, and soon broke below 4.20%, and once approaching 4.11%, approaching the intraday low since March 4 after the release of the pre-market "small non-farm" ADP employment report of US stocks.