by WorldTribune Staff, July 7, 2025 Real World News
President Donald Trump said that his tariffs strategy, aimed at boosting U.S. industry by taxing foreign products or forcing other nations to lower their trade barriers, is not intended to bring low-skill work such as garment manufacturing to America.
“We’re not looking to make sneakers and T-shirts. We want to make military equipment. We want to make big things. We want to make, do the AI thing,” Trump said.
“I’m not looking to make T-shirts, to be honest. I’m not looking to make socks. We can do that very well in other locations. We are looking to do chips and computers and lots of other things and tanks and ships,” the president said.
In the coming days, Trump said he will start rolling out “reciprocal” tariffs on countries that have yet to reach a tentative deal with his team, adding that new tariffs could hit as high as "60 or 70%."
“We’re going to start sending letters out to various countries starting [Friday]. We’ll probably have 10 or 12 go out,” Trump told reporters on Friday as he returned from a speech at the Iowa State Fairgrounds.
“I think by the 9th [of July] they’ll be fully covered, and they will range in value from maybe 60 or 70% tariffs to 10 and 20% tariffs.” Trump said.
The highest previously announced “reciprocal” rates were 49% for clothing- and shoes-manufacturing hub Cambodia, 48% for next-door Laos, and 47% for the world’s top vanilla exporter, Madagascar.
In addition, nations such as Bangladesh (facing a 37% potential tariff), Sri Lanka (44%), Pakistan (29%) and Indonesia (32%) are top producers of clothes and shoes.
“They’ll start to pay on Aug. 1. The money will start to come into the United States on Aug. 1 in pretty much all cases,” Trump said.
Three deals Trump worked out in principle will partially walk back the new tariffs.
• The pending UK trade agreement would keep in effect Trump’s new 10% baseline on most goods but would exempt the majority of British-made cars, steel and aluminum from higher 25% rates separately announced by Trump. London reportedly agreed to open its market to U.S. meat and ethanol in return.
• The Chinese trade agreement walked back tit-for-tat tariff rates while a more comprehensive deal could be worked out. Trump said Beijing also agreed to open its markets to U.S. goods.
• The Vietnam deal will spare America’s seventh-largest importer from a new 46% tariff, but the rate will be a still-substantial 20%, and 40% on goods transiting from other countries such as China.
As for Canada and Mexico, most of their goods are governed by the USMCA pact and aren’t directly impacted by the tariffs. In March, Trump slapped 25% tariffs on items not part of that framework to pressure the nations to halt the flow of fentanyl and illegal immigrants.
