president Donald Trump Announced a profound perspective of progress “Reciprocal” tariff policy Wednesday led many economists and U.S. trading partners to question how the White House was calculate Its price.

Trump’s plan has set up a 10% benchmark tariff on nearly every country, although many countries (such as China, Vietnam and Taiwan) are much faster. At the ceremony Rose Garden on Wednesday, Trump held a poster committee outlining the tariffs the administration believes “collects” to the United States, and the “discounted” tariffs that the United States will impose..

These reciprocal tariffs are about half the amount of what the Trump administration calls every country accused of the United States, and the poster says China charges 67% tariffs and the United States will respond to 34% reciprocal tariffs.

However, a report from the Cato Institute says that most countries have much lower trade-weighted average tariff rates than the Trump administration says. The report is based on the World Trade Organization’s trade-weighted average tax rate in 2023 and is available in the last year.

The Cato Institute said the trade-weighted average tariff rate in China was 3% in 2023, rather than the 67% stated by the government.

The government said the EU charged 39% tariffs to the United States, but CATO reported that the EU’s trade-weighted average tariff rate was 2.7% in 2023.

In another example, the government said India imposed a 52% tariff on the U.S., but Kato found India’s trade-weighted average tariff rate in 2023 was 12%.

Many users on social media quickly noticed this week that the Trump administration seems to have calculated it Divide the trade deficit by imports Tariff rates reaching each country from a given country. This is an unusual approach because it shows that the United States creates goods in the trade deficit of goods, but ignores trade in services.

The U.S. Trade Representative’s Office said in a press release that calculating the combined effects of tariffs, regulation, taxation and other policies in each country “can be calculated by calculating and counting the tariff levels of insufficient bilateral trade to zero.”

“USTR said in a press release: