Countries will face tariffs ranging from 15% to 50%: Donald Trump

WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump suggested that he would not go below 15% as he sets so-called reciprocal tariff rates ahead of an Aug. 1 deadline, an indication that the floor for the increased levies was rising.

"We'll have a straight, simple tariff of anywhere between 15% and 50%," Trump said Wednesday at an AI summit in Washington. "A couple of - we have 50 because we haven't been getting along with those countries too well."

Trump's comment declaring that the tariffs would begin at 15% represented the latest twist in his effort to impose duties on nearly every US trading partner, and the latest indication that Trump was looking to more aggressively impose the levies on exports from countries outside the small group that so far has been able to broker trade frameworks with Washington.

Trump earlier this month said that more than 150 countries would receive a letter including a tariff rate of "probably 10 or 15%, we haven't decided yet." Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick told CBS News on Sunday that small countries including "the Latin American countries, the Caribbean countries, many countries in Africa" would have a baseline tariff of 10%. And at the first announcement of the tariffs in April, Trump unveiled a universal tariff of 10% on nearly every country.

While Trump and his advisers initially expressed hopes of securing multiple deals, the president has been touting the tariff letters themselves as "deals" and suggesting that he is uninterested in back-and-forth negotiations. Still, he has left the door open for countries to make agreements that could lower those rates.