News / Wednesday still 'Tariff Day' – even if Trump changes his mind again

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Despite casual words over the weekend indicating that the new US tariff deadline will be in August, 9 July remains the day, legally, that reciprocal tariffs bounce back to ‘liberation day’ levels. 

The executive order made on 9 April put into law that the ‘reciprocal’ tariffs announced a week prior would be enforced from “12:01 am eastern daylight time on 9 July 2025”. 

However, Donald Trump told reporters this weekend that the administration would today send letters to trade ‘partners’ containing new tariff levels. He was unclear when asked when tariffs would come into effect, although he did say “we’ll have most countries done by 9 July”. 

However, commerce secretary Howard Lutnick then added: “But they go into effect on 1 August.” And he said: “But the president is setting the rates and the deals right now.” 

However, unless this is confirmed by an executive order, 9 July will legally remain the day tariffs revert and apply. 

Even the much-vaunted Vietnam deal has not yet been clarified, with the only details available on Truth Social, not a legally binding platform. The same is true for the China deal, which is not yet complete. The UK deal appears to be the only one signed into law, on 16 June.

The other certainty is the ending of the de minimis exemption for all countries from July 2027, which was signed into law as part of the “big beautiful bill”. 

But Mr Trump has now added a new threat. Last night he wrote on his social media platform: “Any country aligning themselves with the anti-American policies of BRICS, will be charged an ADDITIONAL 10% tariff. There will be no exceptions to this policy. Thank you for your attention to this matter!” 

The BRICS nations (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa, plus Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, UAE and Indonesia) have just held a meeting in Brazil – at which neither presidents Vladimir Putin nor Xi Jinping attended, the former because he is wanted by the International Criminal Court, but the latter’s reason was unclear. It is the first BRICS meeting the Chinese president has failed to attend, leading to heightened speculation over his future. 

The nations put out a statement, which did not specifically refer to the US, but pointed to ‘trade volatility’. 

“We voiced our serious concerns with the unilateral imposition of trade and finance-related actions, including the raising of tariffs and non-tariff measures which distort trade and are inconsistent with World Trade Organization (WTO) rules. In this testing environment, BRICS members have demonstrated resilience and will continue to cooperate among themselves and with other countries to safeguard and strengthen the nondiscriminatory, open, fair, inclusive, equitable, transparent, and rules-based multilateral trading system with the WTO at its core, avoiding trade wars that could plunge the global economy into recession or further prolong subdued growth.”  

Meanwhile the impacts of tariffs thus far have been muted. According to The Economist, prices in shops are not noticeably higher, and while front-loading dragged US GDP growth into the red in the first quarter, other impacts have been less pronounced. 

The Economist noted: “Companies that bring in goods from abroad now face an unpalatable choice: either they can eat the tariffs and accept lower profits, or they can pass the additional costs on to consumers. 

“So far, they have mostly chosen the first option. Bosses are attempting to wait-out the president. Why alienate customers with higher prices if Mr Trump might change his mind and render the exercise pointless? Even in the latest consumer-price data, which still show inflation a little above the Federal Reserve’s target of 2%, it is difficult to spot a tariff impact.” 

The tariffs may however have dented consumer confidence, signs of which are starting to appear in “hard data”, with household spending down in May over April. 

However, concludes the magazine, the US is possibly wealthy enough to cope with a hit to growth, while the ‘big beautiful bill’ is front-loaded and will provide a boost this year and next, which could hide the impacts of tariffs.

“Not a triumph for Mr Trump – but not a disaster either.” 

The US has reportedly generated $97.3bn from tariffs this year, up to 1 July, a rise of 109.5% year on year, or $50.9bn. As trade patterns shift and tariffs change, this may fall.  

 You can find the list of reciprocal tariffs and countries affected in Annex 1 on page 18, here