President Donald Trump’s promised tariffs are a day away – and they’ll go into effect sooner than some had expected. As in, immediately, the White House said Tuesday.
Although many details remain unknown, perhaps even to Trump himself, the administration’s “Liberation Day” trade policy announcement is expected to be the most aggressive tariff move yet by the most tariff-obsessed president in modern history. Trump is meeting with his trade team Tuesday and the tariffs he announces at a Rose Garden ceremony at 4 pm ET Wednesday will go into effect “immediately,” White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said Tuesday a press briefing.
Trump has vowed to aggressively slap tariffs on US imports as a catch-all solution to almost any problem. And the president has kept his promise — so much so that it’s freaking out investors, economists, CEOs and a growing segment of the population who fear the import taxes will do more harm than good.
But Trump’s tariff efforts so far might pale in comparison to what’s coming next.
Trump told reporters late Monday that he’d “settled” on a plan for sweeping new tariffs to be announced midweek, catching some White House officials by surprise: If the president had indeed arrived at a final decision for the tariffs, it hadn’t yet been widely shared inside the building.
