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Once again, President Donald Trump is delaying his own tariffs.
In April, after introducing jaw-droppingly high, possibly chatbot-calculated “reciprocal” tariffs that he planned to impose on all the United States’ major trading partners, Trump agreed to back off from implementation for 90 days (mainly because Wall Street and the stability of the U.S. dollar did not react too well). Before the new July 9 deadline, Trump had pledged he would negotiate a bunch of deals with America’s trading partners, offering to lower the threatened duties in exchange for U.S.–favoring concessions. But that date has come and gone, and there are no real, concrete arrangements on the table—just some wishy-washy “frameworks” with nations like the United Kingdom, Vietnam, and China that are incomplete at best and deceptive at worst. Thus, having declared just last week that he would not extend the July 9 deadline, Trump has … extended the deadline, with a new executive order promising deals for real this time by Aug. 1.
It may seem like another classic instance of Trump Always Chickening Out, granting financial traders and everyday consumers some hope that the worst outcomes of an aggressive trade war (reinvigorated inflation, investment slowdowns, still-high interest rates) will be postponed in perpetuity, alleviating our state of uncertainty. Indeed, Trump stated at a press conference that the new Aug. 1 date is “not 100 percent firm.” But this time, in order to save face, Trump and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent have escalated their tariff shakedowns in an alarming manner—and, yes, as financial analysts are already warning, that means we do have to fret about the tariffs again. Because no matter what, the fallout is going to have a long-term economic impact that hits your pocketbook—and for political reasons that are uniquely dangerous even by Trump’s typical standards.
To make it appear as if they’re playing out the Art of the Deal, Trump and Bessent resorted to a bizarre diplomatic measure last week: shooting out a bunch of letters, to at least 22 nations, with new tariff proposals and trade demands. They escalated things over the weekend, calling for 30 percent tariffs on Mexico and the European Union—even though, the EU’s trade commissioner said, the bloc seemed to have been close to a deal with the U.S.
Other examples: to the hard-bargaining Japan and South Korea, new duties of 25 percent; for South Africa and Sri Lanka, 30 percent; for Indonesia, 32 percent; for Cambodia and Thailand, 36 percent. Only one world leader seemed happy about getting a letter: Myanmar’s military dictator, who has otherwise earned no contact from the U.S. in the years since he coup’d his way to power. On top of all that, Trump announced an impending 50 percent tariff on all copper imports as a “national security” measure, sending international metals markets into a tizzy.
Some of these numbers aren’t as wackadoodle as the original April proposals, which, among other things, had targeted Cambodian textiles with a 49 percent levy. But there’s reason to be concerned they really could happen. Because it’s not just the EU trade commissioner complaining about trickery., Leaders from Southeast Asia have also accused the Trump administration of bait-and-switch tactics: reaching agreements that they announced to their home countries, only for the Americans to either deny those stated terms or leave them quietly unsigned and unconfirmed. Plus major Asian players like Japan and India have some very hard lines they’re drawing in order to protect their key domestic industries (cars and agriculture, respectively), while Trump seems to want to gain further access to their markets by sheer brute force.
It is difficult to imagine any of this resolving less than a month from now, and collectively, the countries called out here are key sources of fruits, clothes, electronics, rubber, and manufacturing materials. The EU says the 30 percent tariffs could “prohibit” trade between its 27 member nations and the U.S., and it has already drawn up its own list of countertariffs that could affect up to $25 billion worth of American goods. The Yale Budget Lab estimated in a Thursday report that the overall impact of U.S. tariffs would slam the average American household with at least $2,400 more in yearly expenses, as prices for goods like shoes and apparel rise significantly while American manufacturing jobs (which also depend on a smooth supply of foreign copper) take yet another hit.
Those shakedowns will magnify the already-steep distrust from our allies. And, even more concerning, Trump is weaponizing other tariffs as a form of incoherent, rage-bait diplomacy. On Thursday night, the U.S. president continued the letter blitz with a message to Canada, once again accusing our northern neighbor of pouring fentanyl over the border (which is untrue) and threatening a 35 percent duty on all Canadian exports. The wild part of this is that, in the interest of improving the two allies’ sour trade relations, Prime Minister Mark Carney just conceded on one of Trump’s major sticking points: Canada’s digital services tax, a years-old 3 percent surcharge on all Canadian transactions with foreign social media companies and streaming services. Other nations have undoubtedly noticed this and will be less eager to mollify Trump if they believe they won’t get anything out of appeasing him.
Then there’s the situation with Brazil. In a July 6 Truth Social post, Trump announced he would be levying an additional 10 percent tariff on “Any Country aligning themselves with the Anti-American policies of BRICS,” referring to the formal alliance between Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa that came together in 2010. As a group of economic superpowers that provide a counterweight to Western influence, BRICS has gained plenty of power and influence in an era of growing global discontent with the American empire. Just this decade, BRICS has spearheaded the U.S.-dollar-bearish “de-dollarization” movement, and it’s inspiring dozens of nations to apply for its ranks. The bloc has now expanded to include Egypt, Ethiopia, Indonesia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates (not coincidentally, some of the very countries singled out by the U.S. for new tariff threats).
Trump’s ire with BRICS reportedly spurred from a summit the bloc held in Rio de Janeiro over the July 5 weekend, where the member nations expressed their disapproval of the recent bombing campaigns in Iran and a regimen of global trade that appears to revolve around one man’s arbitrary tariffs. The Truth Social post—which appears to threaten a “secondary tariff” similar to the U.S. tax on countries that buy oil from Venezuela—certainly did not mollify the BRICS sentiments, and the countries’ leaders responded in kind, with Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva going so far as to double down on the group’s de-dollarization goals.
That really did not make Trump happy. In a Wednesday letter addressed to Lula, Trump wrote that he would hike tariffs on Brazil up to 50 percent—but not because of any beef related to trade. The letter rages against “Trade Deficits,” but the opposite is true in this instance: The U.S. actually holds a trade surplus with Brazil, meaning that we get more money from the South American nation than it does from us. We also get billions of dollars’ worth of nice things, like coffee, meat, veggies, and a lot of raw manufacturing materials. Brazil is also a major source of beef exports to the U.S., a salve at a time when meat prices are driving inflation. (Another market that’s already freaking out about the Brazil situation? Orange juice.)
This tariff ultimatum is just an explicit political cudgel against another liberal official. Trump’s letter starts by shouting out Lula’s predecessor, the dictatorial Jair Bolsonaro, whom the Brazilian justice system is prosecuting for attempting a coup to stay in power after losing his 2022 reelection bid, among other charges. Bolsonaro remains a darling of far-right movements throughout the world, which is undoubtedly a factor in Trump’s demands for Brazil to end its former president’s prosecution “IMMEDIATELY!” Notably, the letter also manifests a promise Trump made to the social media tycoons who’d come to embrace him, like Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg and X’s Elon Musk, in citing Brazil’s postcoup social media regulations as additional tariffs justification. The fact that Trump’s invoked similar regulations during trade talks with Canada and the EU is a sign that Silicon Valley is attempting to sidestep governmental oversight at all costs—even if it means that your T-shirts will be pricier.
Lula, for his part, is not backing away from Trump, having already proposed his own 50 percent countertariffs. The thing is, thanks to that trade surplus and its leadership within the BRICS bloc, Brazil has more resilience against U.S. trade-warring than Trump seems to realize, and experts agree that an actual tariffs spat between the two nations would draw on for a long, long time. It’s also a good example as to why the power to set tariffs historically has not rested with the U.S. president, and why Trump’s arbitrary tariffs regime remains untenable.
To sum it all up: The United States is not a trustworthy trading partner for just about anyone right now. Between his misleading overtures to key Asian exporters, his blunt-force aggression toward Brazil and Canada and Europe, and his attempts to get traditional U.S. allies to agree to terms on which they do not wish to budge, Trump’s efforts are serving to drag us into trade wars that will be longer and more brutal than he expects. All the while, anti-American solidarity is only solidifying. And no matter what, our wallets are all going to feel the pinch now that prices have started to demonstrably rise again—thanks to the tariffs already in place. Whatever happens next, the trend lines are clear: American importers are already storing fewer products in order to avoid tariffs as they currently stand and hoarding more cash for themselves instead, leaving consumers with fewer options. And pretty much any other country besides the U.S. looks like a good trading partner right about now.
