True level of tariffs in world's largest economies
In light of escalating trade wars, there is lots of talk about the unfair trade practices of China provoking the US to impose massive tariffs on imports from China. Especially Trump’s administration is talking much about the US being cheated on trade.
In this context, there was a lot of “cherry-picking” of the data to emphasize high foreign tariffs, while conveniently ignoring high US tariffs. For example, Trump will mention a 270% Canadian tariff on dairy products, without mentioning U.S. tariffs of up to 187% on sour cream. Or the White House trade adviser Peter Navarro will mention EU auto tariffs of 10% and argue that those are much higher than the 2.5% tariffs for car imports to the US, but he won’t mention the 25% US tariff on truck imports.
Cato Institute’s Simon Lester prepared a comprehensive comparison table to exhibit the current level of trade tariffs imposed on imports by the world’s top ten economies including the US, China, the European Union etc.
Trade tariffs in world's largest economies
Source: Cato Institute
Author
Mario Blascak, PhD
Independent Analyst
Dr. Mário Blaščák worked in professional finance and banking for 15 years before moving to journalism. While working for Austrian and German banks, he specialized in covering markets and macroeconomics.
