How did the United States come to its tariff figures?

The markets turned the way in which the administration of President Donald Trump arrived at the figures behind the radical prices on the American imports declared on Wednesday, which dropped the global financial markets And triggered concerns around the world.

Trump and the White House have posted a series of graphics on social media detailing the rate rates they say that other countries impose in the United States. The column listing these alleged rate declared that they include the “manipulation of the currency of the countries and the trade barriers”.

An adjacent chronicle shows the new American prices on each country as well as the European Union.

These rates are, in most cases, about half of what the Trump administration claims that each country has “billed” the United States. CNBC could not independently verify data from the American administration on these tasks.

It didn't take long for market observers to try to retort the formula – to Confusing results. Many, including journalist and author James Surowiecki, said the United States seemed to have divided the trade deficit by imports From a given country to reach prices for individual countries.

Such a methodology does not necessarily align with the conventional approach to calculate the prices and implies that the United States would have examined only the trade deficit of the goods and ignored the trade in services.

For example, the United States said that China invoiced a price of 67%. The United States has ran a deficit of 295.4 billion dollars with China in 2024, while imported goods were worth 438.9 billion dollarsAccording to official data. When $ 295.4 billion is divided by $ 438.9 billion, the result is 67%. The same mathematics check Vietnam.

“The formula concerns commercial imbalances with the United States rather than reciprocal rates in the direction of distortions in terms of price or non-price,” said Trinh Nguyen, main economist of emerging Asia in Natixis. “This makes it very difficult for Asian countries, in particular the poorest Asian countries, to respond to the United States to reduce short-term prices while the reference buys more American goods than they export them to the United States”

“Since American products are much more expensive and purchasing power is lower for targeted countries with the highest tariff levels, such an option is not optimal,” said Nguyen. “Vietnam, for example, stands out to have the fourth trade surplus with the United States and has already lowered the prices against the United States before the price announcement without a stay.”

The United States also seemed to have applied a 10% levy for regions where it runs a trade surplus.

The office of the US trade representative has exposed his approach On his websitewhich seemed somewhat similar to what cyber detectives had already understood, except for some differences.

“While individually calculating the effects of the commercial deficit of tens of thousands of prices, regulations, taxes and other policies in each country are complex, even impossible, their combined effects can be proxy by calculating the level of rate in accordance with the driving of bilateral trade deficits to zero,” said the USTR website. “If the trade deficits are persistent due to policies and fundamentals pricing and non -tariffs, the rate of price in accordance with the compensation of these policies and fundamental is reciprocal and fair.”

The USTR has also included estimates of the importance of imports to import prices – in other words, how sensitive the demand for foreign goods is sensitive to prices – and the higher prices of higher prices of imported goods.

This screenshot of the USTR web page shows in more detail the methodology and formula which, according to her, was used:

Some analysts have recognized that the American government's methodology could give it more room for maneuver to reach an agreement.

“All I can say is that the opponent surrounding the pricing figures can add a certain flexibility in the conclusion of transactions, but this could have a cost to American credibility,” said Rob Subbaraman, responsible for the world macro-research at Nomura.

– Kevin Breuninger of CNBC contributed to this article.