From MFN to “reciprocal tariffs”

Kevin O'Rourke ()
Additional contact information
Kevin O'Rourke: CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, ECON - Département d'économie (Sciences Po) - Sciences Po - Sciences Po - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, CEPR - Center for Economic Policy Research

Post-Print from HAL

Abstract: It is much too soon to speculate about the long-run impact of the second Trump administration's trade policy, since we don't know what it will be next week, let alone four years from now. But what we do know is that 2 April 2025 marked a brutal rupture with 90 years of American foreign economic policy that have shaped the world we live in. The symbolism was stark. By awarding each trading partner its own "reciprocal" tariff, the government of the US was tearing up the central foundational principle of the GATT and its successor organisation, the WTO, namely, the principle of non-discrimination enshrined in Article 1 of the GATT. Since it was the US itself that had been the great promoter of non-discrimination in trade – a position it had held since the 1930s – the events of 2 April marked the end of an era.

Keywords: second Trump administration’s trade policy; American foreign economic policy; US government (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025-12-01
Note: View the original document on HAL open archive server: https://sciencespo.hal.science/hal-05509165v1
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Published in Gary Gensler; Simon Johnson; Ugo Panizza; Beatrice Weder di Mauro. The Economic Consequences of The Second Trump Administration: A Preliminary Assessment, 2, CEPR Press, pp.309-314, 2025, Rapid Response Economics, 9781912179992

Downloads: (external link)
https://sciencespo.hal.science/hal-05509165v1/document (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hal:journl:hal-05509165

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Post-Print from HAL
Bibliographic data for series maintained by CCSD ().