How Did Donald Trump 'Calculate' The Tariffs On Each Country? Author Simplifies Complex Math

In a recent tweet, a social media user claims to have discovered a major flaw in former President Donald Trump’s tariff rate calculations. As per a tweet by James Surowiecki, the author of 'The Wisdom of Crowds', the Trump campaign did not actually compute tariff rates and non-tariff barriers as they claimed.

According to him, these figures wre arrived at after takin into account the US trade deficit with a given country and dividing it by that country’s exports to the US.

“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,”tweeted James James Surowiecki.

Surowiecki cited the example of Indonesia. He noted that the United States reportedly has a $17.9 billion trade deficit with Indonesia, while Indonesia’s exports to the US. amount to $28 billion.
 

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“$17.9/$28 = 64 percent, which Trump claims is the tariff rate Indonesia charges us. What extraordinary nonsense this is,” added Surowiecki. 

He was replying to his own tweet wherein he stated that the tariff rates that foreign countries are supposedly charging us are just “made-up numbers”. In the same tweet he mentioned, “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. 

US President Donald Trump on Wednesday announced a series of tariffs, targeting countries around the world, in a move that could spark a global trade war. Industry observers reckon that the tariffs impose could threaten various sectors like the automobile, dairy, steel, and electronics.