U.S. President-elect Donald Trump speaks at a rally the day before he is scheduled to be inaugurated for his second term in Washington, U.S., January 19, 2025.
brian snyder reuter
President-elect Donald Trump is poised to sign a flurry of executive orders soon after taking office, but Monday’s action will not include imposing tariffs on U.S. trading partners, according to the Wall Street Journal.
President Trump is expected to issue a sweeping trade memorandum on Monday directing federal agencies to study and evaluate unfair trade practices and currency policies with other countries, particularly China, Canada and Mexico. But the memo stopped short of imposing new obligations on countries, according to a review of the memo and discussions with Trump’s advisers.
Asked about President Trump’s trade policy on Monday morning before the inauguration, White House officials referred to the Journal article and confirmed the report.
The president-elect’s trade plans may have evolved from what he touted on the campaign trail. Bloomberg News reported last week that his campaign is discussing a schedule for gradually increasing tariffs on trading partners by about 2% to 5% a month.
President Trump once made universal tariffs a central tenet of his economic campaign, imposing a 20% tariff on imports from all countries and a particularly steep 60% tax on Chinese products.
Many economists believe such protectionist trade policies could make goods more expensive to produce and raise consumer prices, just as the world is recovering from a pandemic-era inflation surge. I was worried that there would be.
— Click here to read the original Wall Street Journal article.
