I'll have to check this out tomorrow sometime.

James Surowiecki @JamesSurowiecki
Just figured out where these fake tariff rates come from. They didn't actually calculate tariff rates + non-tariff barriers, as they say they did. Instead, for every country, they just took our trade deficit with that country and divided it by the country's exports to us.
So we have a $17.9 billion trade deficit with Indonesia. Its exports to us are $28 billion. $17.9/$28 = 64%, which Trump claims is the tariff rate Indonesia charges us. What extraordinary nonsense this is.

James Surowiecki
@JamesSurowiecki. 1h
Replying to @JamesSurowiecki
It's also important to understand that the tariff rates that foreign countries are supposedly charging us are just made-up numbers. South Korea, with which we have a trade agreement, is not charging a 50% tariff on U.S. exports. Nor is the EU charging a 39% tariff.


If so, this is some junior league stuff that's going to stumble us into an inflationary recession.

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