President Donald Trump has announced that the 200% tariffs, which are supposed to go into effect on April 2, will no longer apply to certain items. It was reported that the tariffs would likely omit a set of industry-specific tariffs while applying reciprocal levies on a targeted set of nations.

Trump has long touted that April 2 will be known as America’s “Liberation Day” after the tariffs go into effect on sectors like automobiles, pharmaceuticals and semiconductors. However, now it appears not to be the case.

A source close to Trump reportedly told Bloomberg that the White House is still planning to unveil the reciprocal tariff action on the proposed day, however, the planning of the tariffs is fluid. The White House did not immediately return The Mirror US’s request for comment.

In addition to the narrowing of the tariffs, it was reported by The Wall Street Journal that the U.S. retaliatory tariff against Canada and Mexico faces an uncertain future. Trump initially justified the tariff with fentanyl trafficking.

The outlet reported that the tariff that will go into effect next month is now geared toward the 15% of countries that have persistent trade imbalances with the U.S. which are called the “dirty 15” by Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent.

Bessent stated last week that the countries, that account for most of the U.S.’s foreign trade, will be especially hard hit with higher tariffs. The news comes after Secretary of state Marco Rubio issued a chilling six-worded message to U.S. allies.

“What we have now cannot continue,” Rubio said while appearing on Face the Nation last week. The threat comes in light of the announcement of additional trade tariffs and the possibility of bilateral talks with countries to establish new trade agreements.

Rubio made his appearance after Trump threatened to impose a 200% tariff on European imports such as wine, cognac, and other alcohols and escalated the trade war with the EU.

It was also reported that the financial market is feeling the impact of these tariffs, prompting experts to express some concerns about a potential recession as retaliatory tariffs come into play. Rubio confirmed that the U.S. would respond to any nations imposing retaliatory tariffs on them.

During his time on the political talk show, Rubio stressed that discussions for bilateral talks would only commence once the tariffs imposed by Trump on other nations, including Canada, Mexico, and most of Europe, take effect.

“This is global. It’s not against Canada. It’s not against Mexico. It’s not against the EU. It’s everybody,” he said.”And then, from that new baseline of fairness and reciprocity, we will engage – potentially – in bilateral negotiations with countries around the world on new trade arrangements that make sense for both sides.”

The secretary of state remained mum on specifics, but as Reuters reports, he did declare that the U.S. would “reset the baseline” to guarantee fair treatment in the global economy.

|The Mirror US