Newly elected US President Donald Trump speaks during a rally the day before he will be inaugurated for a second term, in Washington, US, on January 19, 2025.
Brian Snyder | Reuters
President-elect Donald Trump is poised to sign a series of executive orders once he is sworn in, but imposing tariffs on U.S. trading partners will not be among the actions Monday.
Trump will release a broad trade memorandum on Monday that directs federal agencies to study and assess unfair trade practices and currency policies with other countries, especially China, Canada and Mexico. However, the memo stopped short of imposing new duties on the countries.
The Wall Street Journal On his first day in the White House, he first reported on Trump’s move to delay imposing tariffs.
The president-elect’s trade plan could evolve from what he touted during his campaign. His camp has discussed a schedule of gradual tariffs rising by about 2% to 5% per month for trading partners. Bloomberg News reported this last week.
Trump once made universal tariffs a core tenet of his economic campaign pitch, imposing a 20% tariff on all imports from all countries, with a specifically harsh 60% tariff on Chinese goods.
Many economists feared that such protectionist trade policies could make goods more expensive to produce and raise consumer prices just as the world is recovering from pandemic-era inflation spikes.
— CNBC’s Megan Cassella contributed reporting.