WP 21: Deriving the Trump Tariffs

By Benjamin Gøtestam

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For more information visit Skatteforsk - Centre for Tax Research.

Abstract

On April 2, 2025, President Donald Trump announced a wide-ranging set of “reciprocal tariffs” against many of its trading partners. The calculation of these tariffs have elicited a largely negative reaction in part due to the simple formula used to calculate them. In this note, I provide a model which, under the proper assumptions, does indeed result in the administration’s formula. I, however, leave it to the reader to judge whether these assumptions are reasonable.

Keywords: Tariffs; Global Supply Chains; Passthrough.

JEL: F13

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