Journalist posits where "Tariffs Charged to the USA" numbers came from

[allegorical oracle]

(Noted this a.m. that economists, including Krugman, have been puzzling over where the administration came up with the chart column "Tariffs Charged to the USA" calculations because they don't make sense. Surowiecki believes he figured it out)

Journalist James Surowiecki observed Wednesday evening that the president's sweeping worldwide tariffs seemed to be based on a simplistic formula, which takes the U.S. trade deficit with an individual nation and divides that number by its exports to the U.S.

"Just figured out where these fake tariff rates come from," Surowiecki posted on X. "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."

White House aide Kush Desia disputed that claim, citing a press release by the office of the U.S. trade representative that claims the tariff rates relied on a "basic approach," and provided a formula using Greek symbols, but Surowiecki argued that was the same formula that he had devised.

"This is truly amazing," Surowiecki posted. "The Deputy White House Press Secretary is claiming that I'm wrong, and that the 'tariff rates' on Trump's chart were calculated by 'literally' measuring every country's tariffs and non-tariff trade barriers. To prove it, he screenshots the formula the USTR says was used to calculate the reciprocal tariffs we imposed on other countries. And when you back out the Greek symbols, what is that formula? Trade deficit/imports - exactly what I said it was."

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/truly-amazing-journalist-slaps-down-white-house-aide-s-attempted-fact-check/ar-AA1CdG1K

[BootinUp]

1. News orgs are spreading blatantly clear propaganda. Nt

[Ray Bruns]

11. If they even bother to do that.

[dchill]

2. What do we expect? The administration is in possession of...

...and motivated by and philosophically based on zero facts. And they're pathologically intellectually lazy. We can see all of that in their charts.

[underpants]

3. This is what they did. This is the third post I've seen from different sources

https://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1014&pid=3432399

AI
https://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=20202273

[unc70]

4. Comedians should have a field day with those numbers

Start with the penguins, then do a simple explanation of the so-called tariff rates, then a couple of jokes of ridicule.

[Disaffected]

5. How utterly extraordinary indeed.

Bizarro world looks tame in comparison.

Meanwhile, for a little perspective on the markets, I suggest a look at this (the graph defaults to 1 day but click on "5Y" or "Max" to get the bigger picture):

https://www.google.com/search?q=djia+quote&oq=djia&gs_lcrp=EgZjaHJvbWUqDQgAEEUYOBg7GEYY-gEyDQgAEEUYOBg7GEYY-gEyDggBEEUYJxg7GIAEGIoFMg8IAhBFGDsYgwEYsQMYgAQyCAgDEEUYJxg7Mg0IBBAAGIMBGLEDGIAEMg0IBRAAGIMBGLEDGIAEMg0IBhAAGIMBGLEDGIAEMg0IBxAAGIMBGLEDGIAEMg0ICBAAGIMBGLEDGIAEMgcICRAAGI8C0gEIOTA2OWowajeoAgCwAgA&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

[surfered]

6. Now would Trump's Deputy White House Secretary lie to you?

[LetMyPeopleVote]

7. The formula used by trump is very stupid

This is a very stupid way to calculate tariffs

Link to tweet

Link to tweet

Here is the Vietnam example

Link to tweet

This guy cracked the tariff formula:
@orthonormalist

It’s simply the nation’s trade deficit with us divided by the nation’s exports to us.

Yes. Really.

Vietnam: Exports 136.6, Imports 13.1
Deficit = 123.5

123.5/136.6 = 90%

[allegorical oracle]

33. Thanks for posting those. I tried but kept setting off a virus alert each time. nt

[Johnny2X2X]

8. They are in fact that dumb

They don't know how anything works. The bus is being driven by a blind monkey.

[Ray Bruns]

12. I wish it was being driven by a blind monkey.

[tanyev]

9. Somebody's now got the title for their book about Trump's second term: Extraordinary Nonsense

[efhmc]

28. Sorry but IMO too gentle.

[IronLionZion]

10. Good that some journalists have verified and called out the lies

way too many just repeat it so then people believe it.

And as CNBC’s Steve Liesman noted on BlueSky, Trump “straight up lied.”

“The President straight up lied when he said the US is now charging tariffs at half the rate other countries charge,” he wrote. “They made up those tariffs out of whole cloth. We now likely have the highest tariffs in the developed world, and even higher than many developing countries.”

Shortly after Trump concluded his Rose Garden speech, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent warned other countries not to levy reciprocal tariffs.

“My advice to every country right now is do not retaliate,” he said. “Sit back, take it in. Let’s see how it goes because if you retaliate, there will be escalation.”

https://www.mediaite.com/trump/trump-used-phony-numbers-to-justify-his-massive-tariffs/

[lame54]

18. Other countries will...

Trade without us

[IronLionZion]

22. People are soon going to find out the world doesn't revolve around the USA

China and others are more than happy to take up the trade lost from the US. Countries are getting fed up with Trump and don't want to deal with him.

[aggiesal]

19. We have Billionaire tax breaks to pay for. Come on, get with the program ...

[Ray Bruns]

13. The people in charge of this country are terminally stupid.

[lame54]

14. They make perfect sense...

Trump's a fucking liar

Treating him as anything else is what does not make sense

[spanone]

15. Pulled directly out of his sphincter.

[aggiesal]

16. I think everyone is coming to that same conclusion ...

Here is an image from New York Times

[Arazi]

17. That's been confirmed by the US trade rep

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/how-trump-came-up-with-his-reciprocal-tariff-formula-145530164.html

[crud]

20. It's the stupidity of it all

I'm ashamed that these idiots got elected to lead the country. Such a huge waste. So sad. We need to stop them somehow, the sooner the better.

[ProfessorGAC]

21. This Was Not Nefarious

They are simply this clueless about how finance & economics work.
This is an error born out of ignorance, not some grand plan.
It's just numbers to justify a stupid idea.

[William Seger]

34. His MAGAsty is clueless, for sure, and the rest are willfully ignorant

If you've ever paid attention to anything he has ever said about the balance of trade and trade deficits, it's clear that his misunderstanding is as bad or worse than his misunderstanding of tariffs: He has said many times that a trade deficit means other countries are cheating us. So now, that's somehow morphed into the belief that it's really a tax?

The scary thing is that at least some of the people around him can't really be that stupid, but will gladly pretend they are to please him.

[cksmithy]

23. I am so glad a journalist

broke it all down. I took many math classes, high school and college, to get my California Teaching Credential. I could follow his reasoning using only my high school algebra class. This is how and why algebra is an important class. You do use it in your adult life. Hopefully, the correct people see, read and understand it, so they will change their minds and vote for the Democratic party.

[allegorical oracle]

37. OMG. You've totally shamed me. Know I personally sent at least three

algebra teachers into insane asylums as they mumbled, "she's unteachable"

[ashredux]

24. Folks, these are the guys that sat in the back two rows of the classroom, giggling and throwing spit balls

Trump folks are not the “best in the brightest”

[ShazzieB]

25. It came from Trump; of course, it's extraordinary nonsense!

[sprinkleeninow]

26. Lying and Liars...

Proverbs 6:17 says lying is an abomination to the Lord. Proverbs 12:22 tells us, “Lying lips are an abomination to the Lord; but they that deal truly are His delight.” So it is clear how God feels about lying. He hates it. Thirdly, lying is contrary to the nature of God.

[patphil]

27. Imaginary tariffs used to calculate real ones.

Welcome to Trump land; the land of make believe.

[Jit423]

29. I am believing the journalist because any sophisticated computation formula is beyond the brains of any of this admin.

Stupid is as stupid does and tries to dumb down everyone. Do they even understand that a trade deficit might be a good thing in some situations?

[haele]

30. They put a Tariff on Diego Garcia and an uninhabited island in Antarctica

You can't tell me that wasn't $usk's "Grok" AI used by his li'l Dogies deciding where to implement tariffs against...

[LetMyPeopleVote]

31. Trump's Tariff Formula Slammed As 'Fake' And 'Incredibly Stupid' By Experts

trump is an idiot and is very bad at math. trump does not understand trade deficits and balance of trade numbers which is why trump keeps claiming that the US is subsidizing Canada. The math behind the trump tariffs is incredibly stupid and simplistic. Again trump is using a stupid formula because he is too stupid to understand the math
https://bsky.app/profile/forbes.com/post/3llweasa4at22

Link to tweet

https://www.forbes.com/sites/saradorn/2025/04/03/trumps-tariff-formula-slammed-as-fake-and-incredibly-stupid-by-experts

The tariff rates unveiled by President Donald Trump on Wednesday stems from a simple formula based on U.S. trade imbalances with other countries—not the tariff rates they charge the U.S., along with “currency manipulation and trade barriers,” as the White House initially claimed.

Key Facts

Trump, debuting rates including 54% for China, 20% for the European Union and 26% for India, said the figures were based on “the combined rate of all their tariffs, non-monetary barriers and other forms of cheating” that was then divided in half because Trump wanted to be “kind.”

Analyses posted on social media and in news articles determined the numbers were based on a much more simplistic calculation made by dividing a country’s trade surplus (representing the value by which a country’s exports exceeds the cost of its imports from the U.S.) by its total export value, then multiplying the figure by 0.5.

The formula matched the tariffs Trump debuted for China, the European Union, Indonesia, India and Vietnam, Ian Bremmer, a global political scientist and founder of Eurasia Group consultancy firm, pointed out on X, writing “this is…incredibly stupid.”

China, for example, had a trade surplus of $295 billion with the U.S. last year, with $438 billion worth of goods exported to the U.S.—$295 billion divided by $438 billion is equal to 67%, and divided in half equals the 34% tariff rate Trump debuted Wednesday.

The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative later confirmed the formula by publishing what appears to be a complex math equation for calculating the tariff rates, but when stripped of its Greek letters, shows it’s essentially based on countries’ trade surpluses with the U.S. divided by their export value then divided in half.

The approach suggests countries could lower their tariffs by buying more U.S. products, which would be “very difficult for Asian, particularly poorer Asian countries, to meet US demand . . . given that U.S. goods are much more expensive, and the purchasing power is lower for countries targeted with the highest levels of tariffs,” Natixis senior economist Trinh Nguyen told CNBC.

Chief Critics
“If the Trump administration didn't calculate the "tariff rates" other countries are supposedly imposing on us by using the formula trade deficit/imports, it's an amazing coincidence that every single country's "tariff rate" is equal to trade deficit/imports,” economic journalist James Surowiecki wrote on X. Thomas Sampson of the London School of Economics told the BBC "the formula is reverse engineered to rationalise charging tariffs on countries with which the US has a trade deficit. There is no economic rationale for doing this and it will cost the global economy dearly."

Again, the formula used by trump is very stupid

[haele]

32. They didn't count the services other countries get from the US.

There's billions of dollars in American based services purchased daily from countries all over the world, especially with entertainment, media, telecomm, finances, and various technical and computing services. Service industries make the global economy "flat".
Tech Bros should know this by now, even if all they took was Marketing 101, one would have thought by now some of them would have been somewhat concerned about their bottom lines; just because they might be able to buy up all the valuable products, patents, or products from the huge dumpster fire that will be the US economy doesn't mean the rest of the world would ever trust US products or services afterwards, especially since they've dumbed down the population that would be providing those products or services.

They're all f'ing Idiots.

[ThoughtCriminal]

35. TLDR version

The numbers Trump put on the chart are lies.

Getting into the specifics of what formula they used to make up the fake numbers is just too hard for the math skills Trump voters and stay-homers.

A country could have zero tariffs on American goods, but that formula would show "High tariffs" if they happen to export a lot of stuff Americans want.

[LetMyPeopleVote]

36. MaddowBlogThe Trump White House keeps trying (and failing) to make mathematical formulas work

During the pandemic, Team Trump tried to craft a formula that told them what they wanted to hear. With tariffs, they did it again. Both were failures.
https://bsky.app/profile/hategop.bsky.social/post/3llzbsvwzps2b

The Trump White House keeps trying (and failing) to make mathematical formulas work.
During the pandemic, Team Trump tried to craft a formula that told them what they wanted to hear. With tariffs, they did it again. Both were failures.

Link to tweet

https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/maddowblog/trump-white-house-keeps-trying-make-mathematical-formulas-work-rcna199733

Roughly five years later, the Republican president is back in the Oval Office; he and his team are again mismanaging a crisis; and the whole operation is again trying and failing to concoct mathematical formulas. As my MSNBC colleague Hayes Brown summarized:

When President Donald Trump presented his sweeping global tariffs from the Rose Garden on Wednesday, even the most basic questions were left up in the air. At the top of the list: How did the White House derive the wildly disparate rates listed on the graphic Trump so proudly displayed? As global markets roiled in the aftermath of the announcement, the White House gave an answer about its calculations that was patently ridiculous.

Economic journalist James Surowiecki helped get the ball rolling on this, concluding that to arrive at Trump’s tariff rates, the White House simply “took our trade deficit with that country and divided it by the country’s exports to us” — a method Surowiecki described as “extraordinary nonsense.”.......

CNBC’s Steve Liesman told viewers, “Nobody ever heard of this formula. Nobody’s ever used this formula. So, I’m sorry, but the conclusion seems to be the president kind of made this up as he went along.” Douglas Holtz-Eakin, president of the conservative American Action Forum, told the Washington Post, “They’ve got an indefensible foundation to an indefensible policy.”

Ian Dunt, a British journalist, added in reference to the White House’s methodology, “It’s hard to state just how nonsensical that actually is. You might as well divide the numbers of apples in your kitchen by the number of bagels and use it to calculate your mortgage rate. To criticize it on political or economic grounds is too generous. It operates below the level of rational thought.”

The Post’s report, quoting two White House sources, said Trump “personally selected” the formula, which “bears some striking similarities to a methodology published by Peter Navarro, Trump’s hard-charging economic adviser.”

That same article quoted a White House official with knowledge of Trump’s thinking, who said, in reference to the president, “He’s at the peak of just not giving a f--- anymore. Bad news stories? Doesn’t give a f---. He’s going to do what he’s going to do.”

It’s the worst possible combination of conditions: We’re left with a bad policy, based on a bad formula, embraced by indifferent officials who don’t know what they’re doing, but who are in positions of enormous power.