President Trump inflicted the lowest level of new tariffs on the Islamic Republic, despite the testy relations between the two countries.
of all his new tariffs just before he suspended them.
Trump imposed a 10 percent “baseline” tariff on almost every country in the world April 3. Iran was tagged with that 10 percent tariff. Trump then used a strange formula that imposed higher tariffs on countries that bought less from the US than they sold to the US. But since Iran buys much more from the US than it sells, only the baseline tariff was imposed on Iran.
Last year, Iran bought almost 15 times as much from the US as vice versa and in 2023 it bought almost 27 times as much.
Iran buys mainly pharmaceuticals and medical gear, which are exempt from US sanctions— although the Iranian media tell the public that the Americans won’t sell medicines to Iran because they want Iranians to die.
The 10 percent tariff will apply to the few things Americans buy from Iran, chiefly antiquities.
The highest tariff possible under the Trump formula was 50 percent, and that was applied only to two “countries”— Lesotho, an African kingdom surrounded by South Africa, and Saint Pierre & Miquelon, which are tiny French islands in the Atlantic just off the coast of Newfoundland with a population of only 6,000. The islands do not set any tariffs; they are under European Union tariffs.
Israel found itself facing a 17 percent US tariff despite the fact that Israel recently abolished all tariffs on American products. Israelis were mystified (and angry) that Trump’s fact sheet showed Israel charging a 33 per cent tariff on American products when the actual tariff is zero.
Trump also imposed tariffs on the Heard and McDonald Islands, which are Australian islands near the Antarctic populated only by penguins and that do not export anything.
come close to a billion dollars in any year since the
revolution. The US only bought more than $100
million a year from Iran in the first decade of the
21st century, but that ended when Barack Obama
became president. Iran started buying big from
the United States after the Iran-Iraq war ended in
1988, but then slammed on the brakes when
President Bill Clinton imposed heavy restrictions
in 1995. Iran resumed big purchases in 2008 just
as the US stopped buying from Iran. But Iran
slammed on the brakes again when Donald Trump
dumped the JCPOA.
A new tariff was also applied to Diego Garcia, a British owned island in the Indian Ocean with no native population but hundreds of American and British military personnel. It is the island to which Trump recently deployed B-2 bombers that could bomb Iran.
