{"id":132303,"date":"2025-04-03T10:17:50","date_gmt":"2025-04-03T10:17:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/trump-tariffs-latest-world-reacts-to-trump-madness-as-island-home-only-to-seals-and-penguins-targeted-sky-news\/"},"modified":"2025-04-03T10:17:50","modified_gmt":"2025-04-03T10:17:50","slug":"trump-tariffs-latest-world-reacts-to-trump-madness-as-island-home-only-to-seals-and-penguins-targeted-sky-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/trump-tariffs-latest-world-reacts-to-trump-madness-as-island-home-only-to-seals-and-penguins-targeted-sky-news\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump tariffs latest: World reacts to Trump 'madness' – as island home only to seals and penguins targeted – Sky News"},"content":{"rendered":"

Donald Trump has revealed his package of tariffs – including a 10% levy on the UK. The British government is relieved it’s not worse but the FTSE 100 has dropped on opening. Follow below for the latest, and listen to Trump 100 analysis as you scroll.
Thursday 3 April 2025 11:15, UK
Live reporting by Bhvishya Patel<\/a>andAdam McGroarty<\/a><\/i>
Donald Trump has announced sweeping global tariffs that threaten to ignite an unprecedented trade war.
The US president held up a chart in the White House Rose Garden outlining what he said were the “reciprocal” tariffs each country would face.
A tariff is effectively a tax on imported goods – the US has been on the wrong end of these for decades and Trump’s hope is that his policy will encourage companies to manufacture inside the US and will “make America wealthy again”.
But the scale of Trump’s actions threatens to drive up prices in the US and cause chaos in the global economy.
His list included 10% tariffs on goods entering the US from the UK in response to the UK’s 20% VAT. As 10% is Trump’s baseline tariffs rate, the UK is seen to have come out of this better than most.
Trump confirmed the European Union will face a 20% reciprocal tariff on all other imports. China’s rate is set at 34%.
His first tariff announcement was a 25% duty on all car imports from midnight – 5am today.
“This is Liberation Day,” he told a cheering audience of supporters.
Here’s data and economics editor Ed Conway<\/a> explaining the story in a minute…
Israel’s finance minister Bezalel Smotrich has said the country will take the “necessary steps to strengthen Israel’s industry” in response to Donald Trump’s tariffs.
Israel and the US signed a free trade agreement 40 years ago and around 98% of goods from the US are now tax-free. 
But Trump imposed a 17% levy on US imports from Israel last night.
Meanwhile, Ron Tomer, president of Israel’s Manufacturers’ Association, said the tariffs could harm Israel\u2019s economic stability, deter foreign investments, and weaken the competitiveness of Israeli companies in the US market.
“We hope and believe that the decision will be short-lived,” he said.
Italy’s Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni has said Donald Trump’s tariffs are”wrong” but called on Europe to avoid getting into a trade war.
The Italian government said Meloni cancelled her engagements for the day so she can focus on her country’s actions in response to Trump’s announcement.
Meloni, who is a close ally of Trump, described the 20% tariff on the European Union as being “not in the interest of either party”.
“We will do everything we can to work towards an agreement with the United States, with the goal of avoiding a trade war that would inevitably weaken the West in favour of other global players,” she said.
Earlier this morning, we told you that European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen said the EU is preparing countermeasures.
After Donald Trump held up the list of countries soon to be hit by his tariffs, many watching had one question – where’s Russia?
The US president had threatened to put secondary tariffs on Russian oil over the weekend – which increased the confusion when Russia wasn’t mentioned in the Rose Garden last night.
Now, the White House has told our US partner network NBC News that Russia is not on the list because of heavy sanctions on the country due to the war in Ukraine, and that the US currently has no trade with it.
After the Biden administration introduced the measures on Russia, the value of US-Russia trade plunged from around $35bn in 2021 to $3.5bn last year.
Despite Trump vowing to put “reciprocal” tariffs on both friends and foes, he’s also left out Cuba, Belarus and North Korea.
By Stephen Murphy<\/a>, Ireland correspondent<\/b>
Irish exporters are starting to come to terms with the impact of the 20% tariff announced by Donald Trump.
Maud Black co-founded Blacks Brewery & Distillery in Kinsale, Co Cork, with her husband Sam. They currently export spirits to three US states – Rhode Island, Texas and Ohio – and have ambitious expansion plans.
“It’s created a lot of uncertainty with our next shipment to the US,” Maud told Sky News at the distillery this morning. 
US distributors are already “nervous” about the effect tariffs will have on their bottom line.
Could flow of US tourists be disrupted by Trump’s trade war?<\/b>
A second challenge is the potential threat to American visitor numbers to the business, which boasts a visitor centre, bar and tasting rooms. 
With economists predicting US households will be forced to pay thousands of dollars more on imported products, the Blacks are concerned about any decrease to US disposable income, “especially into summer next year”.
The business also imports American oak barrels and hops from the US, raising the prospect of any EU retaliatory tariffs potentially making those products more expensive.
It’s a triple threat \u2013 ironically the name of one of Blacks whiskeys. 
“We’re resilient, though,” says Maud. “We’ll navigate this as a business somehow.”
Heard Island and McDonald Islands are among the remotest places on earth. 
They’re accessible only to those willing to take a two-week boat voyage from Perth, Australia.
Not only that, but they are completely uninhabited – except for seals and penguins – and the last people to reach them are believed to have done so some 10 years ago. 
But as we mentioned in our 10.30 post, the Trump administration has still slapped tariffs on the islands.
The islands are among several “external territories” of Australia which Trump listed separately in his tariff list to the mainland – and are subject to a 10% tariff imposed on its goods.
Despite being completely uninhabited, export data from the World Bank shows the US imported $1.4m of mainly “machinery and electrical” products from Heard Island and McDonald Islands in 2022. 
Needless to say, it’s completely unclear what those goods were, seeing as there isn’t so much as a house on the island, let alone a factory. 
The Australian prime minister, Anthony Albanese, said in response: “Nowhere on earth is safe.”
Reaction to Trump’s tariffs continues to come in from around the world. 
Swissmem, an industry association representing tech companies in Switzerland, says: “The new tariffs are a severe blow to companies in the Swiss tech industry, which are in a difficult situation after many months of declining sales.”
A reminder that Trump imposed a 31% tariff on US imports from Switzerland yesterday.
With the raft of new tariffs being implemented by Donald Trump comes a question – how were these figures calculated?
How did Vietnam get hit with one of the highest tariff rates?  
And why are the Heard Island and McDonald Islands –  among the remotest places on earth – being tariffed at all?
Well, it hasn’t taken long for market observers to try to work out the formula.
James Surowiecki, a financial journalist for The Atlantic and The New Yorker, explains that the US appeared to have divided the trade deficit by imports from a given country to arrive at its tariff rates.
But this methodology doesn’t quite follow the conventional approach for calculating tariffs.
“What extraordinary nonsense this is,” Surowiecki said.
He added: “How in God’s name did Scott Bessent [Trump’s Treasury secretary] agree to sign off on this?”
He went on to explain: “In calculating the tariff rate, Trump’s people only used the trade deficit in goods. So even though we run a trade surplus in services with the world, those exports don’t count as far as Trump is concerned.”
Trump’s dodgy South Korea figures<\/b>
Meanwhile, our US correspondent Mark Stone <\/a>has also noted the “distinct air of deception about it all”.
Like Surowiecki, he spotted something odd about the trade barriers Trump has imposed on South Korea. 
“Take South Korea, with which the US has a trade agreement. It is not charging a 50% tariff on US exports as Trump’s charts claim,” he said.
“Is the EU really charging America a 39% tariff? No. Team Trump’s maths add undisclosed ‘currency manipulation’ calculations and non-tariff barriers (of which the EU has many to be fair) to the calculations. 
“But the numbers and the arithmetic are still hard to explain.”
Read Stone’s analysis in full…<\/b>
While the focus in the aftermath of the tariff announcements has been on the global economic and geopolitical impact they might have, a number of Donald Trump’s officials were busy attempting to present their own explanations for the policy in various television appearances.
Among them was secretary of commerce Howard Lutnick, whose justification for the tariffs imposed on the European Union (20%) included a brief but bizarre rant about the bloc’s ban on imported chicken from the US.
“I mean the European Union won’t take chicken from America,” he said.
He added: “They will take lobsters from America… they hate our beef because our beef is beautiful and theirs is weak.”
For context:<\/b> The EU has a ban on chicken washed in chlorine – a practice that is approved by the United States Department of Agriculture.
Although US beef is not completely prohibited in Europe, any beef that has been treated with artificial growth hormones – which is legal in the US and common among producers there – is banned by the EU.
Donald Trump’s “tariff madness has the potential to cause significant economic damage to the EU”, a German trade union boss has said this morning.
On the raft of new US taxes on its imports, IG Metall district director Thorsten Groger said Germany’s economy was already facing “substantial disruption”.
Groger said that while targeted and effective countermeasures “must be taken with a cool head”, precision is “preferable to a scattergun approach here”. 
“One thing is certain: A trade war has no winners – neither on the European nor the transatlantic side,” he said.
The trade union director also said that the US “risked exacerbating inflation and provoking economic disruption” as a result of the move.
Donald Trump sent shockwaves around the world last night when he announced sweeping tariffs, sparking widespread condemnation from all corners of the globe.
If you’re just catching up with our updates this morning, here’s a look at how it’s all unfolded since the announcement…
Be the first to get Breaking News<\/span>
Install the Sky News app for free<\/p>\n

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