It would not be surprising if some people wanted to check that it was not 1 April, when the US celebrates April Fool’s Day, the equivalent of Spain’s día de los inocentes. 

If there is one thing that has characterized the Trump Administration in its second term, it is the unpredictability of its actions. Even his own advisers did not know the details of the tariffs he would place on each country. It is therefore not surprising that the distribution of these levies seems arbitrary. The minimum for all countries is 10%, but for some countries the percentage is much higher. The country with the highest tariffs is China, with 54% (cumulating previous measures). 

In the case of the European Union, Trump decided to impose a 20% tariff. The motivation is far from clear. The EU exports more goods than it imports to the US, but buys more services than it sells (think Netflix, Amazon, Google). If both goods and services are considered, the trade balance balances out. 

For example, in 2022, the EU’s total surplus was only 3% of total trade between the two countries. In other words, this surplus is large in absolute numbers because the volume of trade is large, but in relative terms it does not justify higher tariffs. 

This article was originally published in The Conversation.