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Here Are Trump’s New Tariff Threats

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President Trump has told 14 countries that they will face tariffs of at least 25 percent on Aug. 1 if they don’t reach agreements by then.President Trump informed Japan, South Korea and 12 other nations on Monday that they will face tariffs of at least 25 percent starting Aug. 1 unless they can broker new trade deals imminently with the United States.The newly announced rates, communicated in letters to those nations’ leaders and posted on social media, marked a revival of Mr. Trump’s trade brinkmanship, with additional threats targeting other nations expected throughout the week.The new tariff rates essentially replace the sky-high duties that the president announced in April. At the time, Mr. Trump quickly paused his so-called reciprocal levies for 90 days, mostly so his administration could broker favorable trade agreements around the globe.But the White House has made minimal progress on what an official once described as a campaign to strike “90 deals in 90 days,” with the deadline set to lapse on Wednesday.To buy more time, Mr. Trump signed an executive order on Monday that extended his initial pause, while sending notes to countries informing them about the new taxes on their exports to the United States.His initial battery of letters went to Japan, South Korea, Malaysia, South Africa, Kazakhstan, Laos, Myanmar, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, Cambodia, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Tunisia and Thailand.Both Japan and South Korea, which each represent about 4 percent of U.S. imports, face 25 percent tariffs on Aug. 1. Thailand would see a rate of 36 percent and Bangladesh 35 percent.Mr. Trump also threatened to raise rates even higher if any of the countries sought to retaliate with import taxes of their own or tried to evade the U.S. duties by shipping through other nations.In the coming days, the White House is expected to send additional letters to other countries, some of which will be subject to the tariffs outlined by the president in April. More

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    South Africa’s Play to Ease Tensions With Trump: A New Trade Deal

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    Lawmakers were warned that the United States is planning more punitive actions against the country. Officials hope a new trade deal will help repair the icy relations.South Africa is preparing a new trade offer to present to President Trump, hoping to appeal to his transactional approach to foreign policy and ease boiling tensions with Washington, a spokesman for South Africa’s president said this week.The spokesman, Vincent Magwenya, said in an interview that South African officials are anticipating Mr. Trump will call for an end to the African Growth and Opportunity Act, a decades-old trade agreement that has been an economic boon to the 32 African nations that it includes.The act allows billions of dollars worth of goods — from produce to cars — from sub-Saharan Africa to enter the United States without duties. It is scheduled to expire this year but could be reauthorized by Congress.Although officials in South Africa hope the program will be renewed, they plan to offer the United States a bilateral deal that would increase trade in sectors such as energy, Mr. Magwenya said.A future without the African Growth and Opportunity Act would represent a significant shift for the continent’s largest economy. South Africa has for years lobbied against threats to expel it from the program on the grounds that its economy had grown too advanced. South African officials argue that the African Growth and Opportunity Act has kept businesses confident in the South African economy, helped maintain stability across the continent and fostered a healthy relationship with the United States.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Trump’s Threats About the Dollar Could Push Other Countries to Find Alternatives

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    President-elect Donald J. Trump threatened to impose tariffs on countries that seek to replace the dollar in trade or undermine its global reserve currency status.When Republicans nominated Donald J. Trump to be their presidential candidate over the summer, the party’s platform included a pledge to maintain the role of the United States dollar as the world’s reserve currency.Since winning the election, Mr. Trump has indicated that he wants to deliver on that promise. Over the last week he warned that if the group of nations known as BRICS countries — which include Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa — tried to create their own currency to rival the dollar, he would punish them with 100 percent tariffs and shut them out of U.S. markets.“There is no chance that the BRICS will replace the U.S. Dollar in International Trade, and any Country that tries should wave goodbye to America,” Mr. Trump wrote on social media.The warning was intended to preserve the dollar’s premier status, but economists and analysts suggested that it could have the opposite effect. Although it appears unlikely that the BRICS would be able to create their own currency, the aggressive use of tariffs and sanctions by the United States is the reason that other nations have increasingly been considering alternatives to the dollar. By making such threats, Mr. Trump could end up accelerating that trend.“Threatening retaliation against the unlikely creation of a BRICS currency only reinforces the rest of the world’s concerns about the U.S. willingness to wield dollar dominance as an economic and geopolitical weapon,” said Eswar Prasad, the former head of the International Monetary Fund’s China division. “This will intensify other countries’ attempts to diversify away from use of the dollar for international payments and for foreign exchange reserves.”The dollar has been the world’s dominant currency for about a century and has served as the world’s reserve currency since the end of World War II. It makes up the majority of foreign exchange reserves held in global central banks and is widely used in international transactions such as trade and loans.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More