WASHINGTON >> President Donald Trump unveiled his most expansive tariffs to date in a ceremony at the White House on Wednesday, saying he will impose a 10% tariff on all trading partners except Canada and Mexico, as well as double-digit tariffs on dozens of other countries that administration officials said had treated the United States unfairly.

The move was a significant escalation of Trump’s trade fight and is likely to ripple through the global economy, driving up prices for American consumers and manufacturers while inciting retaliation from other nations. While Trump had been saying for weeks that he would impose “reciprocal tariffs,” his announcement went far beyond what many economists and analysts had expected.

The president said he would sign an executive order applying a universal baseline tariff of 10% to countries around the world, plus levies ranging from 1% to 40% on dozens of trading partners.They include the European Union, China, Britain and India, all of which would also face higher reciprocal tariffs based on trading practices that Trump has deemed unfair. The 10% baseline tariffs will go into effect Saturday and the reciprocal rates next Wednesday, White House officials said.

The moves will shatter the global trading system that the United States had helped build up since World War II, as the higher tariffs of Trump’s own devising replace the rates that the United States negotiated at the World Trade Organization. White House officials said pernicious trading practices by other countries had led to large and persistent trade deficits for the United States and had created a national emergency.

Under Trump’s plan, the United States will add a new 34% tariff on Chinese goods on top of the 20% tariff that he had imposed on Beijing in recent months.

Some specifics

Some of Trump’s steepest rates apply to U.S. allies, including 20% on imports from the EU and 24% on goods from Japan.

The value of tariffs for all the goods imported by the United States last year was $78 billion. With the new tariffs announced Wednesday, the figure would skyrocket to more than $1 trillion, according to an analysis by Trade Partnership Worldwide, a research firm based in Washington.

Canada and Mexico will not be hit by the new measures, though they will remain subject to the 25% tariff that Trump imposed on many of their products last month in addition to separate U.S. tariffs on global steel, aluminum and cars. The car tariffs go into effect Thursday.

The new tariffs will also not apply to products that Trump has already hit with separate levies, including steel, aluminum, and vehicles and their parts. Energy and “other certain minerals that are not available in the United States” will also be excluded.

Initial market reaction

Wall Street shuddered as Trump announced the tariffs, with early market reaction pointing to a further slide in the stock market and a weakening dollar. Futures on the S&P 500, which allow investors to trade the index outside normal trading hours, slumped nearly 2%, erasing a gain of 0.7% while exchanges were open. Global stock benchmarks also came under pressure. In mid-day Thursday trading, Tokyo’s Nikkei 225 index dipped more than 3.4%, while the Kospi in South Korea dropped 1.8%. In Australia, the S&P/ASX 200 also sank 1.8%.

Justin Begley, an economist at Moody’s Analytics, described the new tariffs as “extraordinarily high and certainly bigger than what we had forecast.” Pointing to volatility in the financial markets, he said, “It feels like there’s a flight to safety right now because of expected weaker growth and higher inflation.”

Trade analysts also expressed alarm. Scott Lincicome and Colin Grabow, trade experts at the Cato Institute, which promotes free markets, argued that the administration’s justifications for the tariffs were flimsy and conflicting.

“With today’s announcement, U.S. tariffs will approach levels not seen since the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act of 1930, which incited a global trade war and deepened the Great Depression,” they said in a statement.

White House officials said that the administration did not intend to haggle with other countries over lowering tariff rates but that reciprocal tariffs could be reduced if the U.S. trade deficits fell and countries stopped their unfair practices. The White House has also threatened further tariffs on countries that retaliate against the United States.

Trump described his approach as “kind,” saying he was charging other countries only half of the reciprocal rate that his administration had calculated should be applied, based on their trade practices.

Business reaction

Some business groups expressed unease about the president’s wide-ranging tariffs. Jay Timmons, the president of the National Association of Manufacturers, said his group was still parsing the finer details. But he added that “the high costs of new tariffs threaten investment, jobs, supply chains and, in turn, America’s ability to outcompete other nations and lead as the preeminent manufacturing superpower.”

David French, the executive vice president of the National Retail Federation, said in a statement that the tariffs would “equal more anxiety and uncertainty for American businesses and consumers.”

Tariffs are paid for not by foreign countries or suppliers but by U.S. importers, he said, adding that “the immediate implementation of these tariffs is a massive undertaking and requires both advance notice and substantial preparation by the millions of U.S. businesses.”

Trump has largely dismissed concerns that his tariffs — essentially a tax on imports — could raise prices for American consumers and businesses or prompt retaliation that would hurt farmers and other exporters.

“Every prediction our opponents made about trade for the last 30 years has been proven totally wrong,” the president said at one point during the Rose Garden ceremony, as he looked to preemptively rebut complaints that his tariffs could cause economic upheaval.

“We can’t do what we’ve been doing for the last 50 years,” he said.

International reaction

Governments across the world have been preparing to retaliate, increasing the potential for a destabilizing economic battle that drives up costs as Trump tries to force supply chains back to the United States.

Some governments have responded to Trump’s threats by rolling back their own tariffs. Israel said Tuesday that it would cancel all remaining tariffs on American imports. Effective Monday, Vietnam also cut tariffs on a variety of products, including liquefied natural gas, ethanol, chicken legs, cherries, wood and cars.

The Canadian and Chinese governments have already countered Trump’s previous tariffs with levies of their own. Governments in Europe, Mexico and elsewhere were waiting to see Wednesday’s measures before announcing their responses.

Trump argues that tariffs will encourage companies to move factories into the United States, and he has hailed investment announcements from chipmakers, car manufacturers and others.

But economists say that since tariffs raise prices for imported products and manufacturing inputs, they can slow the economy.

Nancy Lazar, chief global economist at Piper Sandler, now reckons that the U.S. economy may contract 1% in the second quarter “because you’re going to be increasing prices more aggressively and it’s going to negatively impact the consumer space more than we had anticipated.”

Lazar had previously expected a flat quarter. “It’s an immediate hit to the economy,” she said.