How Trump Let $1 Trillion Worth of Imports Escape His Tariff Hammer
Exclusions reflect conflicting goals: to rip up the rules of global trade while cushioning US consumers. But the process isn’t transparent, and not everybody wins.
The White House announced that smartphones would be spared from tariffs.
Photographer: Victor J. Blue/Bloomberg
Ever since President Donald Trump stepped into the White House Rose Garden to announce the largest US tariffs on imported goods in modern history, he and his top economic advisers have repeatedly said that no company, big or small, would be spared.
Holding up a poster board detailing punitive duties on goods from dozens of countries, from China to Lesotho, Trump said any economic pain caused by his tariffs was necessary to spark an industrial revival and “make America wealthy again.”