“Well,” I said with a sigh, “I guess we’d better hope we’re right about tariffs.” It was shortly before 6:00 PM on Wednesday, April 2, 2025, and most members of the American Compass team had gathered in our Washington office. Two others joined by speakerphone as they walked back from the Rose Garden, where President Donald Trump had just delivered his Liberation Day remarks and signed an executive order, Regulating Imports with a Reciprocal Tariff.
Along with the rest of the world, we at Compass were trying simultaneously to make sense of the specifics and assess the full implications. What were the variables in the U.S. Trade Representative’s formula for calculating reciprocal tariffs, what was the legal authority, which tariffs were replacing or being layered atop others? Was this the end of the World Trade Organization, how would other countries respond, how would the market?
Wholesale rejection of the broken status quo, emphasis on addressing global imbalances, and widespread use of tariffs were precisely the path that our organization advocated. Some of the executive order’s specifics aligned closely with our own proposals for a global 10% tariff and a rate closer to 50% for China. Others were entirely novel. We had always emphasized the importance of rates codified in legislation and phased in gradually, which would create certainty and promote investment while minimizing cost. These tariffs would snap into place immediately, but could be modified at any time by the president. The journey ahead would be long, but we were on our way. “The new policies announced by President Trump today confirm the end of the disastrous WTO era,” I said in a statement released around 6:30, “and lay the groundwork for a new set of arrangements in the international economy that prioritize the national interest and the flourishing of the nation’s working families.”
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