WHAT IT MEANS: Trump wants his tariffs to reset the world. He might get his wish by Analysis by Luciana Lopez, CNN

President Donald Trump has repeatedly claimed that other countries have been “ripping off” the United States for years, despite American growth rates that have been the envy of the developed world.

President Donald Trump has repeatedly touted what he calls the return of manufacturing to the United States, hailing companies that have vowed to pour large amounts of money into making everything from computer chips to cars in America.

But announcements are easy to make. In the long term, why would companies and other countries decide to invest in the US, which has upended the global economic order in just weeks? The United States moved from a stable economy, a trusted partner in trade agreements and global security, to a source of confusion and doubt in mere weeks after Trump assumed office on January 20.

Perhaps no one has put it more bluntly than Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Commission, on Wednesday, when she said to a news outlet in Germany: “The West as we knew it no longer exists.”

In other words: The United States isn’t the only trade game in town.

Sure, the US is the world’s biggest economy, with a gross domestic product of almost $30 trillion. But China, the world’s No. 2 economy, is at about $18 trillion, according to the World Bank. And the total value of the European Union’s economy is around 17 trillion euros, or about $19 trillion.

“We have 166 members in the organization. US trade is 13% of world trade. That means that there’s 87% of world trade happening between the other members of the WTO,” Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, director-general of the World Trade Organization, told CNN’s Richard Quest on Wednesday.

Trump has repeatedly claimed that other countries have been “ripping off” the United States for years, despite American growth rates that have been the envy of the developed world. So far, he has imposed 25% tariffs on aluminum and steel; 25% tariffs on goods from Mexico and Canada that aren’t compliant with a free-trade agreement; a massive 145% duty on Chinese imports; a 25% tariff on cars, with separate tariffs on auto parts coming at a later date; and a 10% baseline tariffs on all US imports. To read more go to the link below:

https://www.cnn.com/2025/04/18/economy/global-trade-relationships-trump-tariffs/index.html