Gone in 40 days: How Trump’s ‘liberation day’ tariff assault unraveled

Callum Jones, New York:

Donald Trump hailed a new chapter in the US’s economic history on 2 April, dubbed “liberation day” by his administration, as he announced plans for an extraordinary barrage of US tariffs on the world. The chapter lasted 40 days.

Trump had been steered away from his aggressive instincts on trade during his first term, and persuaded to walk back several tariff threats in the opening months of his second. But back in early April, he was determined to plough ahead.

“April 2nd, 2025, will forever be remembered as the day American industry was reborn, the day America’s destiny was reclaimed, and the day that we began to make America wealthy again,” Trump declared at an event in the White House Rose Garden, before an audience of his top officials and supporters.

The measures were blunt and severe: a blanket 10pc tariffs on all imported goods, and higher individualized rates, of up to 50pc, on dozens of markets – those of economic allies and rivals alike – deemed to have treated the US poorly on trade.

First came the questions. How exactly did the Trump administration come up with such an array of specific duties to impose upon goods from so many countries and territories? And why was a group of barren, uninhabited islands near Antarctica among them?

Then came the panic. Global stock markets tanked, with Wall Street enduring its steepest falls since the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic five years ago, as the president repeatedly insisted he was serious this time.