President Trump has now outlined the higher tariffs he proposes. They are of many heights and therefore, they are to destroy the wealth of more people than I and obviously many others would have expected.
Trump claims he is doing this for reciprocity. In his Rose Garden speech, he pointed out that you should judge the openness of the country to trade not only on their explicit tariff rats but also on the barriers to trade. Based on that, I have produced some great numbers that combine non-tariff barriers, including “currency manipulation,” and those, including explicit tariff charges. When I saw on his graph that it led to a 67% experience rate in China, I was covered in rats.
Of course, I will retain the final judgment on the credibility of Trump numbers until his Council of Economic Advisors publishes high quality economic and economic studies supporting these numbers. I’m skeptical that it does. Such research may be published. It appears to be full of exaggeration, as the president thinks.
Why am I so skeptical of Trump’s claim? This is because there is good data from the Heritage Foundation’s Economic Fredom Index.
On April 1, 2025, in “The Myth of Freedom of Trade and Customs Interactions,” Philip Magnes of the Independent Institute wrote:
The US is currently one of the WORSST offenders between developing countries when placing discriminatory tariffs and NTBs on our trading partners. This position of ignorance may be seen in the Heritage Foundation’s economic freedom indicator, summarizing annual “trade freedom” scores for nearly 200 countries and political jurisdictions. According to a 2025 report, the US ranks 69th, lower than New Zealand (2nd), Australia (3rd), UK (17), Canada (18th), France (38th), and Germany (39th).
The Heritage 100 Point Scale combines the country’s trade-weighted avage tariff rate with NTB’s scoring, including quotas, export restrictions, subsidies, Rejuran and similar assortment of Polly, rather than discrimination against foreign and unfair Afarian products. A score close to 100 indicates a lower tariff rate and less discriminatory trade policy.
The US scored with a mediocre 75.6. This is just slightly better than China’s 74 and much worse than Canada’s 83.2.
This means that true interaction means that the US will reduce trade restrictions on imports from many countries.
It was exaggerated, but I would like to tell all the lies, “and”, “the” and more.
