President Donald Trump on Wednesday announced far-reaching new tariffs on nearly all U.S. trading partners — a 34 percent tax on imports from China and 20 percent on the European Union, among others — that threaten to dismantle much of the architecture of the global economy and trigger broader trade wars.
Trump, in a Rose Garden announcement, said he was placing elevated tariff rates on dozens of nations that run meaningful trade surpluses with the United States, while imposing a 10 percent baseline tax on imports from all countries in response to what he called an economic emergency.
The president, who said the tariffs were designed to boost domestic manufacturing, used aggressive rhetoric to describe a global trade system that the United States helped to build after World War II, saying "our country has been looted, pillaged, raped and plundered" by other nations.
Please select this link to read the complete article from The Associated Press.