US President Donald Trump said he wants to enact across-the-board tariffs that are “much bigger” than 2.5 percent, the latest in a string of signals that he is preparing widespread levies to reshape US supply chains.
“I have it in my mind what it’s going to be but I won’t be setting it yet, but it’ll be enough to protect our country,” Trump told reporters on Monday night.
Asked about a report that incoming US Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent favored starting with a global rate of 2.5 percent, Trump said he did not think Bessent supported that and would not favor it himself. He said he wanted a rate “much bigger” than 2.5 percent.
Photo: Bloomberg
Trump spoke aboard Air Force One while he flew back to Washington DC from a Florida speech where he also pledged tariffs on specific sectors, including semiconductors, pharmaceuticals, steel, copper and aluminum. He also strongly suggested he could also impose them on automobiles from Canada and Mexico, countries he has already threatened with 25 percent across-the-board tariffs as soon as Feb. 1.
“As tariffs on other countries go up, taxes on American workers and businesses will come down and massive numbers of jobs and factories will come home,” Trump said on Monday at a gathering of House Republicans at his Doral resort in Miami, during a speech in which he praised the tariff-heavy US approach at the turn of the 20th century.
“Remember, again, the word ‘tariff.’ We’re going to protect our people and our businesses, and we’re going to protect our country, with tariffs,” Trump said.
“If you want to stop paying the taxes or the tariffs you have to build your plant right here in America. That’s what’s going to happen at record levels,” he added.
Trump’s threat of semiconductor tariffs also comes hours after investor concern about Chinese artificial intelligence (AI) start-up DeepSeek (深度求索) rattled markets and erased billions from Nvidia Corp’s market capitalization. The latest DeepSeek model caused shockwaves when independent tests showed it as competitive with OpenAI and Meta Platforms Inc’s resource-intensive models.
“The release of DeepSeek AI from a Chinese company should be a wake-up call for our industries that we need to be laser-focused on competing to win,” Trump said.
The US has tried to curb China’s progress on AI by banning the export of certain advanced semiconductor technologies and also limiting sales of advanced Nvidia AI chips. But DeepSeek’s progress suggests Chinese AI engineers have found a way to work around the export bans, focusing on greater efficiency with limited resources.
Trump said he had been reading about the company and saw their apparent breakthrough as “good, because you don’t have to spend as much money.”
Trump’s speech came after a weekend in which he threatened tariffs of as much as 50 percent on Colombia after the nation’s government initially declined to accept migrants being deported by the US on military planes. Trump agreed to hold off only after the South American government backed down.
The new president reiterated to House Republicans that any countries that refuse his deportees would be subject to the same tariff-and-sanction threat Colombia narrowly avoided.
A top Trump economic aide signaled on Monday that Trump’s tariff push is part of a broader push. US National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett pointed to the Colombia example — a sign that Trump is considering several streams of tariffs that could add up to a higher overall levy in some sectors or countries — and hinted that the president is also still considering across-the-board tariffs.
“Whatever tariff that might be is going to be in addition to whatever President Trump does in the future when he’s thinking about an overall tariff,” Hassett said on Monday in an interview with Fox Business.
“If you look at tariffs as part of an overall strategy, you’re going to see, as President Trump says, a golden age and it’s going to be the biggest supply-side reform that America’s ever seen,” Hassett said.
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