WSJ What’s News - President Trump Announces 10% Across-the-Board Tariff on All Imports

Episode Date: April 2, 2025

P.M. Edition for April 2. President Trump said that the U.S. will impose a 10% tariff on all imports, and even higher rates for some nations, in a series of moves he declared "Liberation Day" for U.S. trade policy. Plus, the U.S. tariffs send a message to companies that the era of globalization is over. Reporter Tom Fairless, who covers the European economy, discusses whether the president’s strategy can work in bringing manufacturing back to the U.S. And WSJ Brazil correspondent Samantha Pearson explains how Brazil may emerge as a winner in the new trade war. Alex Ossola hosts. Trump Tariffs Live Blog  Sign up for the WSJ's free What's News newsletter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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President Trump imposes 10% across-the-board tariffs on all imports and higher rates for some nations. Today we're standing up for the American worker and we are finally putting America first. Plus, can tariffs actually push businesses to come back to the U.S.? And in a new global trade war, there's a country that may emerge as a winner. It's Wednesday, April 2nd.

I'm Alex Osila for The Wall Street Journal. This is the PM edition of What's News, the top headlines and business stories that move the world today. In a speech in the Rose Garden this afternoon, President Trump announced details of a sweeping tariff plan declaring April 2nd Liberation Day for U.S. trade policy. April 2nd, 2025 will forever be remembered as the day American industry was reborn, the day America's destiny was reclaimed, and the day that we began to make America wealthy again. The president said the U.S. will impose a 10 percent across-the-board tariff on all imports and even higher rates for other nations the White House considers bad actors on trade.

The president called these reciprocal tariffs. Reciprocal, that means they do it to us and we do it to them. Very simple, can't get any simpler than that. Later, Trump held up a chart with a list of countries, saying it was too windy to put on an easel. He began to read off the list with the tariffs the countries impose on the United States,

and then the tariff he said the U.S. would levy in response. He said that the U.S. was going to be, quote, charging a discounted reciprocal tariff, because the U.S. is kind. For China, the U.S. is levying a 34% tariff, then for Europe, quote, we're going to charge them 20%, and Japan 24%. The plan represents a fundamental rethinking of US trade policy on a scale not seen since the post-World War II era,

when the US and other nations in 1947 signed the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, a treaty aimed at lowering tariffs and trade barriers between nations. Trump and his team have said that US trading partners have taken advantage of that system, despite the US's leading role in establishing it, and that their actions seek to ensure fair treatment for American companies and goods.

For continuing coverage and countries' reactions to tariffs, check out the live blog on wsj.com. We'll leave a link in the show notes. U.S. markets closed before President Trump made his tariffs announcement, but major indexes ended the day higher. The Dow rose about 0.6%, the S&P 500 ticked up roughly 0.7%, and the NASDAQ ended the day about 0.9% higher. President Trump's biggest tariff blitz yet

sends a clear message to companies. The era of globalization is over. It's pushing US and foreign companies to bring business back to the US. But will it work? Tom Fairless covers the European economy for the Wall Street Journal. Tom, Trump has been talking about tariffs

and bringing manufacturing back to the US. Has it worked so far? There have been some high profile announcements by some big multinational firms. Apple, Siemens in Germany, various chip manufacturers like TSMC from Taiwan. These kind of announcements are probably take a long time to plan out and probably aren't a direct response to the tariffs. But you do see from questionnaires that

some businesses are steering in that direction towards more US investments. The German Association of Engineering firms conducted a survey of its members recently and they found out that tariffs will run reason that most firms were interested in investing in the US. A lot of companies will wait for the smoke to clear. It's very difficult to make big investments until things have settled down. When companies are thinking where to place a new factory, it tilts them towards the US undoubtedly and away from places like Mexico and Canada. So that trend is there and going

forward it will stem ever more investment into the US. But these are big complicated decisions. It's entire complex supply chains built up over decades and it'll take time. LESLIE KENDRICK The president's strategy here with tariffs would reverse decades of globalization. Can it actually work? GEOFF DUNN That's right. The U.S. effectively established the current globalized trading system and the U.S. was much more aggressive than other countries at doing that and trying to open up global markets. And so this is a real historical development where the US is turning its back on all those decades of advocating free and open trade and pressuring trading partners to do that. Can it work? Yeah.

President Trump and his allies would point to maybe the early 20th century when the US economy was growing very strongly with with high tariffs. It depends very much what other countries do. If other countries retaliate very strongly then you could get a sort of tit-for-tat trade wars breaking out as we had in the 30s during the which sort of aggravated the Great Depression. So yeah it's a high-risk strategy. That was WSJ reporter Tom Fairless. Thank you, Tom. Thank you very much. Thanks, Alex.

Coming up, how one country might benefit from U.S. tariffs by deepening its relationship with China. That's after the break. With the FIZ loyalty program, you get rewarded just for having a mobile plan. You know, for texting and stuff. And if you're not getting rewards like extra data and dollars off with your mobile plan, Today's tariffs continue the global trade war as U.S. allies and trade partners figure out what this means for them. But at least one country might be emerging as something of a winner. Brazil.

In recent years, the country has expanded its trade relationship with China, and more U.S. tariffs could mean opportunities to boost exports to other countries that are being hit. WSJ reporter Samantha Pearson is based in Brazil and is here now with more. So Samantha, break this down for me a little bit. How do greater US tariffs actually benefit Brazil? First, it's important to say potentially a global trade war of epic scale is probably not good news for anyone, but there will be some countries that likely benefit from this

in some ways and obviously some that lose out. Brazil is one of those countries that will see some benefits, and that's largely because of China and commodities. The US has imposed tariffs on China and China's retaliated by putting levies on things like soybeans, meat and cotton. But China still needs to buy these things from somewhere, so it's more likely to buy them from Brazil now. So Brazil's likely to be exporting more soybeans, meat, other commodities to China. Brazil could potentially also see benefits elsewhere. Japan is already buying a lot of beef from the U.S. but now that's in doubt because of

tariffs potentially on Japanese cars. So Japan may be looking now to buy beef from elsewhere. So that could also benefit Brazil. What would deepening trade ties between Brazil and China mean for geopolitical concerns for the U? China is really now in control of some of the most strategic assets in Brazil. And this is the case in other Latin American countries as well, not only through commerce and trade, but it's also lent Latin American governments more than $100 billion over the past couple of decades.

It's actually quite difficult now for the US to reverse that if they want to. China has been quite a big investor in Brazil, but the US has been the largest foreign investor in the country for quite some time now. So how could this new reality affect US investment in Brazil? If Brazil had the choice, it would still prefer investment from the US than China.

So really, that question is down to how does the US react. Good example of that is I was recently in the north east of Brazil visiting a car plant being built by the Chinese firm BYD. That's been built on a site where a Ford factory used to be that shut down in 2021 when Ford left Brazil after more than a century in the country. And when I was speaking to the local people they said yeah I'd much prefer to be working for Ford still but I'll work for BID because that's the job that's on offer. It's a good example of the dynamics here. If the U.S. does step up its investments in Brazil, Brazil will definitely welcome that

with open arms. That was WSJ Brazil correspondent Samantha Pearson. In other news, Tesla's global vehicle deliveries fell 13% in the first quarter compared to a year ago, missing analyst expectations. It's further evidence that a growing consumer backlash against the brand and its CEO Elon Musk is hurting the automaker's business. Despite the decline, Tesla climbed back into third place by sales in the Chinese car market after dropping out of the top five in February.

Tesla stock dipped on the news but eventually ended the day about 5% higher after Politico reported that the electric vehicle maker's CEO plans to step away from his government role in the coming weeks. The White House didn't immediately respond to a request for comment while press secretary Caroline Levitt dismissed the report, tweeting that Musk will depart from public service as a special government employee when his work at Doge is complete.

A federal judge has dismissed the bribery case against New York City Mayor Eric Adams. US District Judge Dale Ho issued the order with prejudice, meaning that prosecutors can't seek to renew the charges in the future. Adams said the decision allowed him to turn the page and focus on running the city. A Justice Department spokesman said the case was an example of political weaponization and a waste of resources.

The pandemic-era relief on federal student loans is gone, and millions of people haven't yet resumed their payments. Now, those borrowers are at risk of seeing their credit scores take a hit. Personal finance reporter Oyin Adedoyin told our Your Money Briefing podcast just how widespread this issue is. More than 9 million student loan borrowers are set to see their credit scores drop in the first half of this year. And that's according to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.

We reported last month that about 43% of borrowers who owe payments on federal student loans hadn't resumed making them. And that was according to an analysis of government data by Advantage Score, a credit score provider. So that's millions of people who are either seeing that their credit scores are dropping pretty dramatically or on track to see those drops in the coming months. To hear more of this interview with Oyin, listen to today's episode of Your Money Briefing. And finally, well, tariffs have been in the news

and on this podcast a lot lately. Turns out they're popular on TikTok too. President Trump's tough rhetoric and quick policy shifts have turned tariff talk into a way for creators to find big audiences. Tariffs may never be as popular on the platform as, say, a viral dance or an elaborate prank. But still, a video by New York-based comedian

Walter Masterson, which explains in detail how levies are paid by companies importing goods to the US, has garnered more than 28 million views on TikTok. That's good for them and all, but I'm sure you know where you can get your news about tariffs and the top stories that move the world today. And that's what's news for this Wednesday afternoon. Today's show is produced by Anthony Bansi and Pierre Bienamé with supervising producer Michael Kosmitis. I'm Alex Osola for The Wall Street Journal. We'll be back with a new show tomorrow morning. Thanks for listening.