Vehicles at an Audi showroom in Miami, March 29, 2025. President Donald Trump has said that tariffs would encourage auto companies and their suppliers to move to the U.S. (Saul Martinez/The New York Times)

- Trump will announce sweeping “reciprocal” tariffs Wednesday, aimed at countering trade barriers against U.S. exports.
- The White House considered a 20% flat tariff on all imports but settled on a plan with varying tariffs based on trade practices.
- Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt dismissed concerns about the tariffs, insisting, “They’re not going to be wrong.”
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President Donald Trump has settled on a final plan for sweeping “reciprocal” tariffs, which are expected to take effect Wednesday after he announces the details at an afternoon Rose Garden ceremony.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt confirmed the timeline in a briefing with reporters Tuesday, adding that Trump had been huddling with his trade team to hash out the finer points of an approach meant to end “decades of unfair trade practices.”
When pressed on whether the administration was worried the tariffs could prove to be the wrong approach, Leavitt struck a confident note: “They’re not going to be wrong,” she said. “It is going to work.”
Trump Administration Weighing Different Tariff Strategies
The administration has been weighing several different tariff strategies in recent weeks. One option examined by the White House is a 20% flat tariff on all imports, which advisers have said could help raise more than $6 trillion in revenue for the U.S. government.
But advisers have also discussed the idea of assigning different tariff levels to countries depending on the trade barriers those countries impose against American products. They have also said that some nations might avoid tariffs entirely by striking trade deals with the United States.
Speaking to reporters in the Oval Office on Monday, Trump said the United States would be “very nice, relatively speaking,” in imposing tariffs on a vast number of countries — including U.S. allies — that he believes are unfairly inhibiting the flow of U.S. exports.
“That word reciprocal is very important,” Trump told reporters. “What they do to us, we do to them.”
By Tuesday, Leavitt said the president had made a decision and was with his trade team now “perfecting it.” When asked if companies could do anything to avoid the tariffs, Leavitt said the president was “always up to take a phone call” from companies but was “very much focused on fixing the wrongs of the past.”
She also said that many foreign governments had called the president and his team to talk about the tariffs, but that Trump was focused on the interests of the United States.
“The president has a brilliant team of advisers who have been studying these issues for decades, and we are focused on restoring the golden age of America and making America a manufacturing superpower,” she said.
—
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
By Tony Romm, Ana Swanson and Jeanna Smialek/Saul Martinez
c. 2025 The New York Times Company
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