alt Hacker NewsSri Lankan here. They just slapped 44% on us (higher than on China). The country is just trying to recover from the economic crisis and the sovereign debt default of 2022, so we have very high import duties on certain items (e.g. vehicles) to discourage dollar outflow. Looks like the US just saw that as hostile and decided to strike back.
Replies
It does nothing with "hostile". For China, yes, but for most other countries tariff is simply ($USA-import - $USA-export)/$USA-import. That simply, numbers are check for many many countries. I'm sure, USA imports a lot of tea from Sri Lanka and some fruits and wood/furniture.
(Freshly made Sri Lankian tea is the best, IMHO! I mean, proper tea, not all these grasses, berries and synthetic aromas which are named "tea" in modern western world).
> They just slapped 44% on us (higher than on China).
Not true, China's is on top of its existing tariffs.
(waves from across Lake Beira)
It's mind-boggling because the US has been trying very very hard to pull Sri Lanka away from China for a decade now
The numbers appear to be based on the trade deficit alone, not on any differences in import duties etc.