The bit I love is that countries with which the US has a trade surplus aren't getting the opposite of a tariff (a grant, I guess) on their imports to the US, they aren't getting zero tariffs on their imports to the US, they're getting 10% tariffs.

It's even worse, they literally got their formula from a llm model (probably Grok?) => https://bsky.app/profile/dansinker.com/post/3llunnyfeoj2v

"To calculate reciprocal tariffs, import and export data from the U.S. Census Bureau for 2024. Parameter values for ε and φ were selected. The price elasticity of import demand, ε, was set at 4.

Recent evidence suggests the elasticity is near 2 in the long run (Boehm et al., 2023), but estimates of the elasticity vary. To be conservative, studies that find higher elasticities near 3-4 were drawn on. The elasticity of import prices with respect to tariffs, φ, is 0.25."[0]

[0] https://ustr.gov/issue-areas/reciprocal-tariff-calculations

Are we factoring in digital/service trades? For example, Netflix is in Vietnam. There are many Netflix subscribers in Vietnam. Does that get factored into the trade deficit? Or is it only physical goods that get factored in?

Vietnam uses many US services such as Microsoft Office, Netflix, ChatGPT, Facebook ads, etc. This is revenue that directly go into the pockets of American companies.

There is a dedicated article in an Austrian newspaper about that: https://www.derstandard.at/story/3000000264129/das-verrueckt... They essentially call it batshit crazy.

Funny how Russia is absent from the list

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercantilism

Here's the official source for the calculation: [0].

Also, there are some hints this might be from a LLM [1].

And an official statement that it's about trade imbalances and not reciproc tarrifs [2].

And they ask the affected country to "not retaliate" [3].

IMHO Trump tries to lead the US like he managed his businesses. And here I'd like to refer to the three casinos he owned that are now insolvent [4].

[0] https://universeodon.com/@cryptadamist/114272481124239587

[1] https://universeodon.com/@[email protected]/11427313249281...

[2] https://ustr.gov/issue-areas/reciprocal-tariff-calculations

[3] https://edition.cnn.com/2025/04/02/business/liberation-day-t...

[4] https://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/12/nyregion/donald-trump-atl...

Does this mean that software worldwide gets a boon since:

1. It’s not affected by these tariffs 2. It wasn’t used as a basis for the calculation

lol when I saw him hold up his piece of cardboard I thought, “yeah that’s definitely random numbers he invented 2 hours ago”

What’s the actual tariffs other countries are charging the US then?

I see how the tariff numbers may have been calculated. But why is it done that way? What is the rationale behind such a calculation? Is this a way to balance the existing trade deficits? How does it work?

Would appreciate you (or anybody else) shed some light on the economics of the thing.

Thank you for posting this, the misinformation is clear as day. But lying is without consequences if people are dumb or lethargic enough, it seems.

This will get very interesting.

Interesting. While I think these tariffs are a bad idea, I'm not qualified to fully pass judgement. However, knowing Trump, when I saw the numbers I instantly suspected they would be wrong.