Trump’s Tariffs Take Effect—Foreign Nations Already Backing Down

President Donald Trump’s long-promised tariffs are now in full force, and the results are coming fast. Speaking from the White House Rose Garden on Wednesday in what he declared “Liberation Day,” Trump confirmed that the United States is finally fighting back against decades of unfair trade policies.

“The tariffs are in place, and they are working,” Trump said. “This is kind reciprocal, but what we do is we cut it in half. We charge them. My answer is very simple. If they complain, if you want your tariff rate to be zero, then you build your product right here in America, because there is no tariff.”

The new policy, which officially took effect Thursday morning, imposes reciprocal tariffs on nations that have long exploited U.S. markets. Trump made it clear that America is no longer tolerating lopsided trade deals.

“It’s been a long time since we even thought of that,” he said. “We used to think about it a lot. We didn’t think about it for many decades. And you see what’s happened for nations that treat us badly. We will calculate the combined rate of all their tariffs, nonmonetary barriers, and other forms of cheating.”

Rather than going for full reciprocity, Trump is implementing tariffs at roughly half the rate that foreign countries have been charging America—deliberately giving them a way out if they choose to play fair. “I could have done that, yes, but it would have been tough for a lot of countries who didn’t want to do that,” he said.

And just as Trump predicted, foreign governments are already falling in line. Within hours of the tariffs taking effect, Israel eliminated all tariffs on U.S. products. Canada announced it will not impose retaliatory measures, while Mexico’s President Claudia Sheinbaum confirmed there would be no “tit for tat” response. Ontario Premier Doug Ford is now looking to negotiate lower trade barriers on both sides.

At the same time, Trump’s pro-America trade policy is driving a wave of companies back to U.S. soil. Stellantis, General Motors, GE Aerospace, Honda, Nissan, Hyundai, and more have either moved or expanded their American operations—just two and a half months into Trump’s second term. “We’ve seen companies coming in like never seen before,” Trump said.

“Likewise, to all of the foreign presidents, prime ministers, kings, queens, ambassadors and everyone else who will soon be calling to ask for exemptions from these tariffs, I say, ‘Terminate your own tariffs, drop your barriers. Don’t manipulate your currencies.’”

According to Trump, the effects of his tariffs will be “fantastic for the workers” and “fantastic for everyone,” fueling a transformation of the U.S. economy that has already begun.

“There will never have been a transformation of a country like the transformation that’s already happening in the United States of America,” Trump said. “It’s an incredible thing to watch.”

As expected, globalists, outsourcers, special interests, and the fake news are scrambling to push their usual doom-and-gloom narratives. But Trump reminded the nation that their track record speaks for itself. “But never forget, every prediction our opponents made about trade for the last 30 years has been proven totally wrong,” he said.

🚨 JUST NOW – TRUMP ON TARIFFS, MARKETS: "It's going very well. It was an operation, like when a patient gets operated on. I said this would exactly be the way it is. We have $6 or $7T coming into our country – we've never seen anything like it."

"The markets are gonna boom, the… pic.twitter.com/gjze3ZNx0i

— Eric Daugherty (@EricLDaugh) April 3, 2025

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