During the 2024 presidential campaign, Donald Trump promised to ease economic pressures on households and restore US economic strength. Central to that promise was the claim that tariffs would revive manufacturing and rebalance trade in America’s favour. Once in office, the second administration quickly made trade policy – especially tariffs – a central pillar of its economic agenda.
The introduction of a sweeping tariff regime on April 2, framed as “reciprocal tariffs”, became the signature economic intervention of the administration’s first year in power – and it appears we have not heard the last of it.
The tariffs were not a single event but a sequence of trade actions launched immediately after Trump’s inauguration. In January, the administration announced the “America first” trade policy. This prioritised reductions in the US trade deficit to revitalise domestic manufacturing and promised tougher economic relations with China. Sector and country-specific tariffs followed.
