Looks fancy! What this means is you take our trade deficit with each country and divide it by the country's exports to us. For example, we have a $17.9 billion trade deficit with Indonesia, meaning we buy $17.9 billion more from them than they buy from us. Its exports to us are $28 billion. $17.9 billion divided by $28 billion is 64%, which Trump says is their tariff on American imports. That's right, a trade deficit is a "tariff." Divide this in half and you get 32%, which is now our tariff on Indonesian goods.
Just to be clear, Indonesia does not have a 64% tariff on American goods. We buy more from them than they buy from us because we're a bigger market and have more money. It would be like me complaining that I have a "trade imbalance" with Publix, because I buy food from them, but they don't buy anything from me. That leads to a 100% trade imbalance, so by Trump's logic, I should impose a 50% tariff on anything I buy from Publix. This is why the tariff on goods from Lesotho (a small, very poor country in southern Africa) is 50%, because we buy some stuff from them, but they don't buy much from us.
There is also a tariff on goods from Heard Island, and the McDonald Islands, which are Australian territories, and are uninhabited by anyone other than penguins. Meanwhile, there are no tariffs on imports from Russia, Cuba, and North Korea.
If you're wondering where this formula came from, the source is "Grok," Elon Musk's AI platform.
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