PANews reported on March 24 that according to the Wall Street Journal, the White House is tightening the scope of implementation of the April 2 tariff policy. The tariffs on specific industries such as automobiles, pharmaceuticals, and semiconductors originally planned to be announced on that day are expected to be postponed, and only reciprocal tariffs will be implemented on major trading partners.
These trading partners include Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, the European Union, India, Japan, South Korea, Mexico, Russia and Vietnam, which account for the majority of U.S. imports. The new policy will set specific tariffs for individual countries, rather than the previously proposed three-tier tiered system. Relevant officials said they were not inclined to provide broad exemptions, emphasizing that any flexibility would be very limited.
The White House said last week that Trump still intends to implement new reciprocal tariffs on April 2, despite Treasury Secretary Benson's earlier statement that they might be delayed. Trump indicated in February that he intended to impose tariffs of about 25% on cars and similar tariffs on semiconductor and pharmaceutical imports, but later agreed to postpone some of the auto tariffs after the three major U.S. automakers requested exemptions.
