President Trump’s latest tariffs sent shock waves throughout Asia, heaping additional turmoil on companies already grappling with uncertainty, while adding further complexity for trade officials ironing out the details of recently struck trade agreements.
As the source of about 40 percent of goods imported into the United States, Asia has borne the brunt of Mr. Trump’s campaign to rewrite the rules of global trade. Trade officials across the region have scrambled to strike deals with his administration over the last several months to prevent punishing tariffs from crippling domestic industries.
On Thursday, Mr. Trump announced another round of tariffs, which would go into effect on Oct. 1, applying import duties ranging from 25 percent to 100 percent on pharmaceuticals, heavy trucks, kitchen cabinets, bathroom vanities and upholstered furniture. A significant portion of furniture and kitchen cabinet manufacturing originates from China and Southeast Asia.
In a sign of the frenetic nature of U.S. policy, Mr. Trump’s own trade representative, who was in Malaysia on Thursday negotiating with officials from Asian countries, signaled that the administration was not planning more tariffs.
“What we are focused on now are the negotiations, not putting out rounds of tariffs,” Jamieson Greer, the U.S. trade representative, told reporters at a meeting of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations in Kuala Lumpur.
Twelve hours later, Mr. Trump announced the sweeping new tariffs on his social media feed.
The new import duties build on the growing list of Mr. Trump’s industry-specific tariffs with an outsize impact in Asia, affecting the import of automobiles as well as key materials such as copper, steel and aluminum. Mr. Trump announced the new duties despite many unresolved issues related to his so-called reciprocal tariffs, which were announced in April and are still being negotiated with countries in Asia. He reached an agreement in July with the European Union, another major American trading partner.
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