Trump world cheers markets with talk of narrowing April 2 tariffs to the ‘dirty 15’
March 24, 2025
0 4 minutes read
Trump administration officials have tried to get a message out in recent days that markets may be overestimating the planned scope and scale of reciprocal tariffs looming in just over a week’s time.
It’s an effort that comes amid growing fears that investors could be in for a shock when April 2 rolls around, a date President Trump has taken to calling “liberation day.”
But this push to calm markets faces plenty of open questions — from whether Trump is willing to allow a possible “narrowing” of his immediate-term tariff plans to how much these latest signals actually diverge from the formal plans unveiled weeks ago.
The crux of the change is that that some nations and many sectors could be in for more of a reprieve than expected next week when when reciprocal duties are announced — even as plenty of key countries continue to be set for a rougher ride.
President Donald Trump pumps his fist as he boards Air Force One at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland on March 21. (BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP via Getty Images) ·BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI via Getty Images
It’s a clear pivot for Trump’s team but also one that many trade experts have long considered a strong possibility, with the investigation that is formally set to end April 1 one that is focused on nations as opposed to industries.
New sector-specific duties — in spite of a flood of Trump threats — have long been seen as more likely to see implementation delayed because of legal requirements for things like public comment periods or another administration investigation.
Either way, markets cheered Monday morning with S&P 500 (^GSPC), Dow Jones Industrial Average (^DJI), and NASDAQ Composite (^IXIC) all pushing upwards on Monday morning.
But many market watchers still continue to view the coming deadline with trepidation given that tariffs are perhaps the key driver of stocks right now.
Pangaea Policy’s Terry Haines noted over the weekend that investors remain squarely focused on April 2 and “there’s potential for market impacts to vary widely by sector/industry.”
He also wrote that Washington is set to challenge markets on multiple fronts in the weeks ahead with the debt ceiling looming and the uncertain fate of tax cuts also key factors.
That adds up to a landscape where “this next 3 month stretch is shaping up — mostly by design — to be the most difficult stretch of the Trump presidency on both the economic policy and geopolitical fronts.”
The efforts by the White House to set new expectations began last week.
“One of the things you see from markets is that they’re expecting that they’re going to be these really large tariffs on every single country, but there are a whole bunch of countries that treat us fairly,” National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett told Fox Business as far back as last Wednesday.
“I think markets need to change their expectations,” he added, calling the tariffs to come on “just a few countries” that they see as cheaters.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent also perhaps tried to downplay the scope one day earlier when he coined a new term last Tuesday, saying the administration was looking at the so-called “dirty 15” — representing 15% of nations that the administration says have persistent imbalances with the U.S.
The issue is that under pretty much any scenario, even those put forth by the administration itself, the countries being targeted may be relatively small in number but make up the vast majority of America’s top trading partners.
A Federal Register notice from February, one step in the investigation process that will culminate on April 1, the office of Trump’s trade representative made clear that a wide array of world economies are in focus.
The notice listed 20 countries by name as well as the entire European Union and the G20 nations. All told, the notice itself pointed out, “these countries cover 88 percent of total goods trade with the United States.”
And as Bessent himself acknowledged in last week’s Fox Business interview “there is a big group of countries where we have a small surplus but we don’t do a lot of trading with them.”
The perhaps larger question amid all the back and forth is where Trump himself stands.
The president notably did not immediately respond to the weekend’s stories with a denial — something he has done in the past — even as he weighed in on a range of administration story lines throughout Sunday evening.
He also offered a more market-friendly take on tariffs on Friday when he said that “flexibility” is a factor in his coming deliberations.
“The word flexibility is an important word,” he told reporters in the Oval Office even as he maintained that exemptions will be rare and he views many top trading partners as cheaters who he has little interest in lessening the coming duties.
“So there’ll be flexibility but basically it’s reciprocal,” he added.
Ben Werschkul is a Washington correspondent for Yahoo Finance.
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