
Forecasting the potential impact of Donald Trump’s turbulent tariff policies is a fraught business – and fraught for business. The United States president has changed, paused and exempted various categories of goods so often, the only certainty is uncertainty.
On “Liberation Day” (April 2) he famously announced far-reaching “reciprocal tariffs” on imports from most trading nations. Since then he has paused those tariffs, but kept 25% on imports of steel, aluminium and motor vehicles, and 10% “baseline” tariffs on all other imports.