Tariff tantrum? Not yet. 

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As expected, Donald Trump has backed off a bit on the ambitious tariff goals he touted on the campaign trail. 

“I think we’ll do it Feb. 1,” Trump said during a Monday press conference, referring to tariff increases on Canada, Mexico and China. 

While he did not comment on specific timing or pace of tariffs, based on conversations with Stephen Miran, head of Trump’s council of economic advisors, we expect to see tariffs increase by around 2% to 5% per month. 

The first time Trump proposed 25% tariffs on China was back in 2018. What ended up actually happening was a ~17% effective tariff, which was implemented over the course of a year. 

“The after-tariff dollar-import price of goods coming from China was practically unchanged,” Miran said. 

In Trump’s day 1 trade policy memorandum, he gives various federal agencies until April 1 to turn in reports on “unlawful migration and fentanyl flows” from Canada, Mexico and China. 

He also instructs the secretaries of the Treasury, Commerce and Homeland Security to evaluate how to create the “External Revenue Service,” a new agency Trump wants to task with collecting tariffs. 

“Instead of taxing our citizens to enrich other countries, we will tariff and tax foreign countries to enrich our citizens,” Trump said on Monday.

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