How were Donald Trump’s tariffs calculated?

President Donald Trump imposed a 10% rate on goods from most countries imported into the United States, with even higher rates for what he calls “worst delinquents”.

But how were these prices exactly – essentially import taxes – were they reactivated? BBC VERIFY examined the calculations behind the figures.

When Trump presented a giant cardboard graph detailing the prices in the white house rose garden, it was initially assumed that the charges were calculated on the basis of existing trade barriers from individual countries.

But later, the White House published what could look like a complicated mathematical formula.

But the real exercise has summed up in simple mathematics: take the trade deficit of the United States in goods with a particular country, divide it by the total imports of goods from this country, then divide this number of two.

A trade deficit occurs when one country buys it (imports) more physical products from other countries than it sells (exports).

For example, the United States bought more goods from China than it sells for them – there is a deficit of goods of $ 295 billion. The total amount of the goods he buys in China is $ 440 billion.

The division of 295 by 440 leads you to 67% and you divide this by two and rounded. Therefore, the price imposed on China is 34%.

Likewise, when it applied to the EU, the White House formula resulted in a tariff of 20%.

Many commentators have stressed that these prices are not reciprocal.

The reciprocal would mean that they were based on what countries are already charging in the United States in the form of existing prices, as well as non-tariff obstacles (things like regulations that increase costs).

But the official methodology document of the White House clearly indicates that they have not calculated this for all the countries on which they have imposed prices.

Instead, the rate rate was calculated on the grounds that it would eliminate the trade deficit of the United States goods with each country.

Trump broke the formula by imposing prices on countries that buy more goods in the United States than they sell him.

For example, the United States is currently not organizing commercial deficit of goods with the United Kingdom. However, the United Kingdom was affected by a 10%price.

In total, more than 100 countries are covered by the new pricing regime.

Trump thinks that the United States is getting a bad deal in world trade. In its opinion, other countries flood the American markets of cheap products – which affects American companies and costs jobs. At the same time, these countries set up obstacles that make products from us less competitive abroad.

Thus, using prices to eliminate trade deficits, Trump hopes to revive American manufacturing and protect jobs.

But will this new tariff regime reach the desired result?

BBC VERIFY spoke to a number of economists. The overwhelming opinion is that, although prices can reduce the deficit in goods between the United States and the individual countries, they will not reduce the global deficit between the United States and the rest of the world.

“Yes, this will reduce bilateral trade deficits between the United States and these countries. But there will obviously be many wider impacts that are not captured in the calculation,” said Professor Jonathan Portes du King’s College, London.

Indeed, the existing overall deficit of the United States is not motivated only by commercial barriers, but by the functioning of the American economy.

On the one hand, the Americans spend and invest more than they earn and that this gap means that the United States buy more from the world it sells. As long as this continues, the United States can continue to continue to manage a deficit despite increasing prices with global computer trades.

Certain trade deficits may also exist for a number of legitimate reasons – not only at prices. For example, buy foods easier or cheaper to produce in climates from other countries.

Thomas Sampson of the London School of Economics said: “The formula is reversed to rationalize the charge prices on the countries with which the United States has a trade deficit. There is no economic justification to do it and it will cost the global economy very expensive.”