United States President Donald Trump said this month that his tariffs were bringing in $2bn a day already. The real number turned out to be $192m per day at the time.
While the import revenue has increased slightly since then, it is still nowhere close to what the president had suggested.
On Friday, April 25, according to the most recent data from the US Department of Commerce, the US brought in $285m in customs and certain excise taxes for the day. Thus far in April, the total has hit more than $16.1bn. The daily income is up from $128m that was brought in on January 17, the last day of the administration of former President Joe Biden for which the US Treasury Department released a daily report.
Trump had threatened to impose “retaliatory tariffs” on nearly all trading partners across the globe. He kept the highest at 125 percent for China in addition to an earlier 20 percent rate because of the country’s role in the fentanyl trade, Trump said.
On April 9, barring China, he paused the retaliatory tariffs and put in place a 10 percent levy on all imports to the US. He also kept in place tariffs he had announced in March on imports of cars, steel, aluminium and potash, all of which are now feeding into US revenue. On Tuesday, the White House said Trump was aiming to ease some auto tariffs and companies paying car tariffs would no longer be charged other levies, such as on aluminium and steel, with reimbursements in the pipeline for such tariffs that had already been paid.
Beijing, in turn, has slapped the US with 125 percent tariffs. Since then, both sides have taken tiny steps back. The US exempted some electronic imports from China from its tariffs, and the latter was considering exemptions of certain imports, according to media reports.
All of this is expected to weigh on the US consumer. According to the Budget Lab at Yale, the American public faces the highest average tariff rate in more than a century at 28 percent.
Lasting impact
Before Trump took office, there were still tariffs in place on a multitude of goods ranging from lumber to electric vehicles.
The Biden administration was tough on Chinese goods as well. In 2024, Biden introduced a 100 percent tariff on electric vehicles, 25 percent on steel and aluminium and 50 percent on semiconductor chips. The move, however, was a continuation of a tariff policy laid out during Trump’s first term.
Trump had introduced heavy tariffs on steel in 2018 at 25 percent, and 10 percent on aluminium quickly followed. In 2019, Trump lifted those tariffs on Canada and Mexico. In 2021, Biden walked back tariffs outlined by Trump specifically for the European Union as steel prices surged amid supply chain concerns brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic.
In 2024, Biden also raised lumber tariffs on Canada – which have been a longstanding point of contention between the two nations – to 14.5 percent, up from 8.5 percent the year before. Those tariffs are expected to more than double in the coming months to 34.5 percent.
The lumber tariffs were slammed as “detrimental” by the National Association of Home Builders amid a housing affordability crisis in the US. But those challenges began in 2017 when the first Trump administration introduced a 20 percent tariff that was later reduced to 8.5 percent in April 2022.
Other notable tariffs introduced by the Biden administration were a result of widespread economic sanctions, including a 35 percent tariff on certain Russian imports in 2022 after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Other countries like Canada and the United Kingdom imposed similar tariffs at 35 percent.
Looming tariff jitters
Trump’s tariffs have much of the world on edge, as well as Wall Street and Main Street. The US Commerce Department released a report this month on consumer spending that showed a 1.4 percent increase over last month. While ordinarily that would indicate an uptick in the economy, this time economists think it can be attributed to consumers spending on key goods before prices go up because of the new tariffs.
Other data show consumer confidence tumbling. The University of Michigan’s Consumer Sentiment Index, released April 11 for the month of March, dropped 11 percent from the month before. In March, the Conference Board reported that consumer confidence fell to a 12-year low.
Companies in the auto industry have already begun furloughs and layoffs. This month, Stellantis laid off 900 people, and General Motors laid off 200 as a result of tariff uncertainty. Volvo announced it would slash 800 US jobs due to the tariffs. The Budget Lab at Yale forecasts that the tariffs could cost 770,000 jobs in the US by the end of the year.
There are concerns in every corner of the world. In the citrus industry alone, there could be 35,000 jobs lost in South Africa because of the tariffs. In the Republic of Ireland, one of the world’s largest producers of pharmaceuticals, tariffs could cost as many as 80,000 jobs. And Mexico has expressed concerns that tariffs could result in the loss of upwards of 400,000 of its jobs.
