Many countries how now manged to conclude new trade deals, although the future of some products within the deals is still not clear.
The future of China’s deal is still uncertain with yet another extension to the talks. Retaliatory tariffs on both sides are still threatened, particularly for the fragile semi-conductor sector.
The 9 July 2025 deadline that President Trump proposed back in April after announcing the tariff increases has long passed. If no trade deal has been concluded or if President Trump does not extend the deadlines, many countries face large increases on the prices of goods imported into the USA. Some are likely to receive a letter from President Trump informing them of the tariff with no negotiation.
China’s deadline is now 10 November 2025. Without that deadline, China faced tariffs of up to 145%. The “truce” maintains the current 30% tariff until November.
Far Eastern countries may be hit with country specific tariffs of between 24% and 49% and additional tariffs of between 20% and 100% for specific products, based on the country of origin. The highest tariff rate could be 149%!
The USA determines origin based on preferential and non-preferential rules of origin. For preferential rules of origin (where there is a trade deal in place) it is possible to import items from, say the UK, that have been substantially transformed from goods from a non-preferential trade partner such as a far eastern country and have the lower tariff applied.
Alternatively, where the non-preferential goods form a small part of the goods, the non-preferential goods are ignored.
Therefore, it could be possible to import raw materials (e.g. cloth, steel, aluminium) into the UK and transform them into other goods such as clothing, screws or tin cans and the preferential rate for the UK (10%) would apply.
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