CNBC reporter Steve Liesman assailed Donald Trump on Thursday for the “made-up” way his administration calculated the “Liberation Day” tariffs, which the president claimed were reciprocal rates based on how much other nations were charging the United States.
While the president made little mention of the methodology behind the calculations, which he unveiled on a giant poster in the Rose Garden, financial journalist James Surowiecki quickly deduced that the White House merely took the trade deficit America has with a country and divided it by the exports the country has sent to the U.S. Also, because Trump said he was being “kind,” the final tariff rate was then cut in half.
