Opening summary
Welcome to our live coverage of Donald Trump’s sweeping tariff regime.
The US president signed an executive order on Thursday imposing reciprocal tariffs from 10% to 41% on US imports from dozens of countries and foreign locations. Rates were set at 25% for India, 20% for Taiwan and 30% for South Africa ahead of Trump’s self-imposed deadline of 1 August for striking trade deals with countries worldwide.
He extended the deadline for a tariff agreement with Mexico by another 90 days.
Brazil’s tariff rate was set at 10%, but a previous order signed by Trump placed a 40% tariff on some Brazilian goods, to punish the country for prosecuting its former president Jair Bolsonaro over an alleged coup attempt after the 2022 election.
In other key news:
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Canadian imports will face tariffs of 35%, not the current 25%, the White House announced. Trump had threatened on Wednesday that Ottawa’s move to recognise a Palestinian state would make agreeing a trade deal “very hard”.
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Some of the world’s poorest and most war-torn countries were hit with punitive rates, including Syria, which faces a levy of 41%; Laos and Myanmar with rates of 40%; Libya with a rate of 30%; Iraq with 35% and Sri Lanka with 20%. Switzerland faces a rate of 39%. The rates are set to go into effect in seven days, according to the order.
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Thailand’s finance minister said on Friday that a 19% tariff rate had been agreed – significantly lower than the 36% level announced in April and better aligned with other countries in the region. Vietnam and Indonesia reportedly negotiated tariffs of 20% and 19% respectively.
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China faces a separate deadline for its higher tariffs of 12 August, with an extension to the truce agreed in principle but yet to be approved by the White House.
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By 31 July just eight countries or economic blocs had reached formal agreements with the White House: the UK, Vietnam, Indonesia, Philippines, South Korea, Japan, Pakistan and the EU.
– With Helen Livingstone, Lisa O’Carroll and agencies
Key events
Trump’s tariffs are a huge blow to global commerce, warns Atakan Bakiskan, US economist at Berenberg bank.
Bakiskan’s verdict is that that the situation is bad, but could have been even worse, explaining:
The tariffs distort competition between companies that produce in the US to serve the US market relative to those that produce abroad. But many European, Japanese and South Korean-based producers compete more against each other than against US-based producers in the US market.
As they all face a 15% levy, the competition between them is distorted by less than would have been the case if Trump had imposed widely different country-specific US tariffs against these key advanced economies.
The US trade war has been hampering UK and eurozone manufacturers, new data shows.
The latest poll of purchasing managers at British factories, just released, highlights that new orders at UK manufacturers fell in July.
Data provider S&P Global says:
New export orders have now decreased throughout the past three-and-a-half years, with the latest decline reflecting global tariff uncertainties, ongoing administrative issues postBrexit and rising competition.
There were reports of lower demand from North America, mainland Europe, the Middle East, India and mainland China.
A survey of eurozone factories, also released this morning, found that their supply chains remained strained in July, with delivery times lengthening.
Dr. Cyrus de la Rubia, chief economist at Hamburg Commercial Bank, explains:
“Given the fragility of the recovery, it is not demand that is causing customers to wait longer for their goods. Volatile U.S. tariff policies and uncertainty stemming from geopolitical tensions may play a key role here. We expect that companies will continue to face sudden supply chain disruptions for the foreseeable future.”
Capital Economics: New US tariff regime still not the end of the story
President Trump’s latest flurry of tariffs implies that the US effective tariff rate will rise to about 18%, from 2.3% last year, reports Stephen Brown, deputy chief North America economist at City consultancy Capital Economics.
Brown told clients this morning:
That is a little higher than we assumed and so presents modest downside risks to our forecast for global GDP growth and a small upside risk to our US inflation forecast.
That said, this is unlikely to be the final word, as it still seems likely that some other countries will reach their own deals with the US, while there is a chance that the US courts will eventually strike down these tariffs.
Lisa O’Carroll
The headline 15% tariff rate applying to most EU goods is better than most countries as it is not in addition, or stacked on top of, a pre-existing tariff, say experts.
That was the snap analysis of Donald Trump’s tariff list by David Henig, director at the European Centre for International Political Economy.
He posted on social media:
“New US tariffs dropped. Don’t be Switzerland. Do be the EU that uniquely got a concession on tariff stacking, which should but won’t silence the doomsters with no actual trade policy or geopolitical knowledge.”
Basically the UK and the EU got the best deals from Trump. Now who predicted that? But wondering whether that shows even for this administration, experience of dealing with the US matters.
— David Henig 🇺🇦 (@DavidHenigUK) August 1, 2025
The EU says its pre-Trump average tariff was 4.8%, arguing therefore, that the 15%, is closer to others who have secured a 10% baseline tariff.
The UK’s 10% tariff is stacked on top of the average most favoured nation tariff rate of 3.8% that applied before Trump was elected, bringing the post-Trump average to 13.8% tariff.
By contrast the EU’s 15% is inclusive of the pre-Trump MFN of 4.8%.
The US stock market is set to fall when trading begins in New York in five and a half hours.
The futures market indictates that the S&P 500 – the broad index of US stocks – is on track to fall around 0.85%.
The futures contract for the tech-focused Nasdaq index is down 0.87%, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average (which tracks 30 large US companies) futures is down 0.9%.
Shares in Watches of Switzerland, the London-listed timepiece retailer, have fallen by over 5% after Donald Trump hit Swiss imports to the US with a 39% tariff.
Traders will be calculating that Watches of Switzerland will either suffer weaker US sales (American customers will pay the tariff, so its prices will be less competitive), or be forced to cut its prices in response (hitting its profits).
Lisa O’Carroll
The Falkland Islands is the only trading partner apart from the UK that is specified in the White House list as having a 10% tariff rate on its exports to the US.
It is one of 14 British overseas territories and its top export to the US is non-fillet frozen fish.
According to the Observatory of Economic Complexity, it sold just under $26m (£19.6m) of the fish to the US in 2023, accounting for 96% of its $27.4m sales to the US in 2023.
The order states that goods imported from every nation on Earth will be subject to a 10% tariff except for goods from the 92 countries listed in an annex that are subject to higher tariff rates.
Australia, which is not listed in the annex, said it assumed that its tariff was 10%.
South Africa’s rand hits two-month low after US sets 30% tariff
South Africa’s financial markets have been rattled by Trump’s decision to impose a 30% tariff on its exports to the US.
South Africa’s JSE FTSE all share index has fallen by 1.2% in morning trading, with ‘consumer cyclicals’ the worst-performing sector.
The South African rand is on the backfoot this morning too. It dipped to a two-month low of 18.24 against the US dollar, its lowest level since mid-May.
European stock markets fall
Stock markets across Europe have dropped, after Donald Trump intensified his trade war last night.
Germany’s DAX index has dropped by 1.1% at the start of trading in Frankfurt, while France’s CAC fell by almost 1% and Spain’s IBEX lost 0.6% – even though Europe reached a trade deal with the US at the start of this week.
That, and the 0.5% drop on the London stock market (see here), shows concerns that Trump’s tariffs will weigh on the global economy, weakening trade growth.
FTSE 100 opens lower
London’s stock market has opened in the red, as the City digests Donald Trump’s swathe of tariffs on trading partners.
The FTSE 100 index of blue-chip shares has dropped by over 0.5%, down 50 points at 9082 points.
That’s a fairly mild drop, taking the ‘Footsie’ away from the record high set yesterday, following the modest losses in Asia-Pacific markets earlier.
Tony Sycamore, market analyst at IG, explains:
Market reactions to the newly announced tariffs, have been relatively subdued, largely due to recent trade agreements with the EU, Japan, and South Korea + others that have mitigated their impact.
Mexico’s 90-day tariff reprieve and positive progress on US-China trade talks, as noted by President Trump, further softened the blow.
In the currency markets, the Swiss franc has dipped against the US dollar after Donald Trump imposed a 39% tariff on imports from Switzerland.
The Swiss franc is down 0.15% at 0.813 per dollar.