President Donald Trump on Monday unveiled the first in a series of planned letters threatening to impose higher tariffs on key trading partners, including 25% levies on goods from Japan and South Korea starting August 1, Bloomberg reported.
Trump also announced 25% tariffs on Malaysia and Kazakhstan, while South Africa would face a 30% duty, and Laos and Myanmar a 40% levy. These countries were the first in what the president said would be a wave of unilateral warnings and trade deals announced on Monday—two days before the deadline for trading partners to respond to his so-called “reciprocal tariffs” proposed on April 2.
“Our relationship has been, unfortunately, far from reciprocal,” Trump wrote in the letters.
Trump also threatened to impose an additional 10% tariff on “any country aligning themselves with the anti-American policies of BRICS,” targeting the bloc of developing nations led by Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa, which held a meeting in Rio de Janeiro attended by a Uruguayan delegation led by President Yamandú Orsi.
Trump’s second-term push to reshape U.S. trade policy has been a constant source of uncertainty for markets, central banks, and corporate leaders, who are trying to anticipate the effects on production, inventories, hiring, inflation, and consumer demand.
