How did the US come to its tariff figures?

The markets turned before the Presidential Administration Donald Trump came to the figures behind the wide tariffs for US imports announced on Wednesday, who sent world financial markets that collapsed And it caused concern around the world.

Trump and the White House have placed a number of schedules in social media, which detail the tariff rates, which, they said, introduce in the US in the column, in which those alleged rates said they had “manipulations with currency and trade barriers”.

The next column shows new US tariff rates both in each country and in the European Union.

In most cases, these rates are approximately half that Trump’s administration claims that each country has “accused” the United States. CNBC could not independently check the US administration data on these duties.

It didn’t take a long time to keep observers of the market attempted to cancel the engineering formula – to Confused results. Many, including journalist and author James Suroetsky, said the US seemed to be divided the trade deficit into imports From this country to come at tariff rates for individual countries.

Such a methodology does not necessarily coincide with the usual approach to calculating tariffs and suggests that the United States would consider only a deficit of trade in goods and ignored trade in services.

For example, the United States said China charges a 67%tariff. US led the deficit 295.4 billion dollars with China in 2024, while imported goods cost $ 438.9 billionAccording to official data. If $ 295.4 billion is divided into $ 438.9 billion, the result is 67%. The same mathematics checks Vietnam.

“The formula is a trade imbalance from the US, not mutual tariffs in the sense of tariff or distortions of the unverified level,” said Trin Nguyen, Senior Economist of Asia. “This is very complicated by Asian, especially poor Asian countries, satisfying the US demand to reduce the tariffs in the short term, because the landmark buys more American goods than they export to the United States”

“Given that American goods are much more expensive, and the purchasing power below for countries aimed at the highest level of tariffs, this option is not optimal,” Nguyen said. “For example, Vietnam stands out in the fourth largest trade surplus and has already reduced tariffs compared to the US before the tariff ad without releasing.”

The US seemed also to apply with a 10% tax for the regions where it is going through trading surplus.

Office of the US Trade Representative outlined its approach on your siteWhich looked somewhat like that Cyber ​​Sleuths has already found out by banning several differences.

“While individually calculating the effects of trade deficit tens of thousands of tariffs, regulatory, taxes and other politicians in each country are difficult, if not impossible, their combined impact can be carried out by calculating tariffs according to the driving bilateral trade deficit,” the Ustr website said. “If the trade deficit is sustainable due to tariffs and politics and basic policy, then the tariff rate that corresponds to the compensation of this policy and the basics is mutual and fair.”

Ustr also included an estimate of imports for imports – in other words, how sensitive demand for foreign goods is to prices – and passing higher tariffs for higher prices for imported goods.

This screenshot web page usts in more detail the methodology and the formula he said that was used:

Some analysts have acknowledged that the US government’s methodology may give it more deteriorating to reach an agreement.

“Everything I can say is that the opacity associated with tariff numbers can add a certain flexibility to the conclusion of transactions, but it can lead to confidence in us,” said Rob Subaraman, head of the global macro -study Nomura.

– Kevin Breninger CNBC contributed to this article.