Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent had a simple three-word response to countries looking to respond to the United States’ broad tariffs: “Do not retaliate.”
President Donald Trump announced on his self-proclaimed “Liberation Day” and declared a 10% tariff on all goods as well as retaliatory tariffs on some of the U.S.’s closest allies that he says are taking advantage of the U.S.
Tariffs of 34% on China, 20% on the EU, 24% on Japan, and 32% on Taiwan are some of the more noticeable ones. Due to an existing 20% tariff, the tariffs on China went up to 54%.
“My advice to every country right now is do not retaliate. Sit back, take it in, let’s see how it goes. Because if you retaliate, there will be escalation. If you don’t retaliate, this is the high-water mark,” Bessent said Wednesday in an interview on “Special Report” shortly after the announcement.
Notably, Mexico, Canada, Russia, and Belarus were not on the list of countries that had to pay tariffs.
Bessent said that the US doesn’t do business with Russia or Belarus because they are under sanctions.
The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, on the other hand, found that the US traded about $3.5 billion worth of goods with Russia in 2024.
The U.S. sent $526.1 million worth of goods to Russia in 2024, which was 12.3 percent less than in 2023. The U.S. also bought $3.0 billion worth of goods from Russia that year, which was 34.2 percent less than in 2023.
The 10% base tariff was announced by the White House to go into effect on Saturday. The individual, reciprocal tariffs will go into effect on April 9.
“These tariffs will remain in effect until such a time as President Trump determines that the threat posed by the trade deficit and underlying nonreciprocal treatment is satisfied, resolved, or mitigated,” read a release from the Trump administration in part.
Bessent told anchor Bret Baier the goal of the tariffs is to set the stage for long-term economic growth.
“We are putting ourselves back onto a sound trajectory,” Bessent said, hitting the Biden administration for “gigantic” government spending.
“The sooner we can get certainty on tax, the sooner we can set the stage for the growth to resume,” said Bessent.
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Trump made the announcement on Wednesday evening in the Rose Garden at the White House.
“Any longer and we’re going to start being smart and with them start being very wealthy again, gonna be wealthy as a country because they’ve taken so much of our wealth away from us. What I could let that happen, we truly can be very wealthy. We can be so much wealthier than any countries, not even believable, but we’re getting smart,” Trump said.
“Nearly a century later, In the face of unrelenting economic, warfare, the United States can no longer continue with a policy of unilateral economic surrender. We that pay the deficits of Canada, Mexico and so many other countries were used to do it. We can’t do it anymore. We take care of countries all over the world. We pay for their military, we pay for everything they have to pay and then. When you want to cut back a little bit. They get upset that you’re not taking care of of many longer, but we have to take care of our people and were going to take care of our people. First said I’m sorry to say that,” Trump added.
“But it’s not too late any longer and we’re going to start being smart and we’re going to start being very wealthy again. We’re going to be wealthy as a country because they’ve taken so much of our wealth away from us. We’re not going to let that happen,” he continued.
Trump added, “We truly can be very wealthy. We can be so much wealthier than any country, it’s not even believable, but we’re getting smart. Nearly a century later, in the face of unrelenting economic warfare, the United States can no longer continue with a policy of unilateral economic surrender. We cannot pay the deficits of Canada, Mexico and so many other countries. We used to do it. We can’t do it anymore. We take care of countries all over the world. We pay for their military, we pay for everything they have to pay, and then when you want to cut back a little bit, they get upset that you’re not taking care of them any longer, but we have to take care of our people and we’re going to take care of our people first. And I’m sorry to say that.”
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