Tariffs on cars, aluminium, pharmaceuticals soon: Trump
US President Donald Trump has foreshadowed slapping tariffs on cars, aluminium and pharmaceuticals while complaining that America was being “ripped off by every country in the world”.
Trump said the US would need all those products if there were problems, including wars.
“We’ll be announcing cars very shortly,” Trump said at a cabinet meeting on Tuesday (AEDT).
“We already announced steel, as you know, and aluminium.”
“We’ll be announcing pharmaceuticals at some point… because we have to have pharmaceuticals.”
“So we’ll be announcing some of these things in the very near future, not the long future, the very near future.
Tariffs were imposed on Australian steel and aluminium imports into the US two weeks ago. There are fears pharmaceuticals could be next.
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Australia exports about $1 billion of pharmaceuticals to the US each year, according to industry estimates.
Trump also suggested timber and semiconductor industries could be added to the target list.
On Truth Social, Trump further vowed to impose a “secondary” 25 per cent tariff on any country that purchased oil or gas from Venezuela.
Trump accused Venezuela of “purposefully and deceitfully” sending “tens of thousands” criminals to the US and being “hostile” to American freedoms.
Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said the US would launch what he called “the external revenue service” on April 2.
Trump has labelled April 2 “Liberation Day” for the US economy when his administration will impose a slew of tariffs.
Some media, including the Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg, have suggested that Trump is likely to exclude some sector-specific tariffs while applying reciprocal levies on April 2.
But a Trump official said the President himself would ultimately determine the contents of the April 2 announcement.
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The action aims to shrink a $US1.2 trillion ($1.9 trillion) global goods trade deficit by raising US tariffs to levels charged by other countries and counteracting their non-tariff trade barriers.
Trump said in February that he intended to impose car tariffs “in the neighbourhood of 25 per cent” and similar duties on semiconductors and pharmaceutical imports. He later agreed to delay some car tariffs after a push by the three largest US car makers for a waiver.
Trump’s whirlwind tariff offensive since his January inauguration has been marked by threats, reversals and delays, sometimes within hours of imposition deadlines, as his trade team formulates policy on the fly.
Thus far, he has imposed 20 per cent duties on Chinese imports, fully restored 25 per cent duties on global steel and aluminium imports and slapped 25 per cent tariffs on imports from Canada and Mexico that do not comply with a North American trade agreement over the US fentanyl overdose crisis.
Two senior Trump officials – Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and top White House economic adviser Kevin Hassett – said last week that the administration was expected to focus the much anticipated April 2 reciprocal tariff announcement on a narrower set of countries with the biggest trade surpluses and high tariff and non-tariff barriers.
Bessent referred to these as the “Dirty 15” a reference to 15 per cent of countries. Hassett told Fox Business the focus would be on 10-15 countries.
A spokesperson for the US Trade Representative’s office, which is leading the effort to determine the reciprocal tariffs, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
A White House spokesperson also did not respond.
In a request for public comments on reciprocal tariffs, USTR said it was particularly interested in submissions for the largest US trade partners, and those with the highest goods trade surpluses.
USTR named Australia – along with Argentina, Brazil, Canada, China, the European Union, India, Indonesia, Japan, South Korea, Malaysia, Mexico, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Switzerland, Taiwan, Thailand, Turkey, Britain and Vietnam – as of particular interest. It said those nations covered 88 per cent of total goods trade with the US.
