President Donald Trump said Monday that he will likely implement a blanket tariff between 15% and 20% on imports to the United States from countries that have not negotiated separate trade agreements.
“For the world, I would say it’ll be somewhere in the 15% to 20% range … I just want to be nice,” Trump said in Turnberry, Scotland, alongside United Kingdom Prime Minister Keir Starmer.
“I would say in the range of 15% to 20% probably one of those two numbers,” he continued.
The figures are significant because they represent an increase from the 10% baseline tariff Trump announced in April of this year.
It also could take a toll on smaller countries hoping that the tariff rate would be closer to 10%.
Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick suggested earlier this month that smaller nations, including “the Latin American countries, the Caribbean countries, many countries in Africa,” would have a baseline tariff of 10%.
But Trump said Monday that “we’re going to be setting a tariff for essentially the rest of the world, and that’s what they’re going to pay if they want to do business in the United States, because you can’t sit down and make 200 deals.”
The White House did not immediately respond to CNBC’s request for comment about whether there would be an exception on the baseline tariff rate for smaller nations.
Trump’s comments come as scores of countries have not negotiated trade deals with the United States, days before his Aug. 1 tariff deadline.
As the deadline looms, Trump administration officials in recent days have suggested that the White House is not “under pressure to have more deals.”
“We’ve all heard the president repeatedly say that he’s happy with the tariff, he’s happy to just send a letter and set a tariff, as opposed to having a deal,” U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer said Monday on CNBC.
A baseline tariff rate somewhere between 15% and 20% is on par with some of the agreements the United States has reached with major trading partners in recent days.
Last week, Trump announced 15% tariffs on Japan, and on Sunday he rolled out 15% tariffs on most European goods to the U.S.
Some countries, however, including Brazil and Laos, have received tariff rates as high as 40% and 50%.
This is breaking news. Please refresh for updates.
