**U.S.** President Donald Trump is scheduled to announce an expansive array of tariffs later today. What exactly the tariffs will look like remains unclear, but Trump has for months promised to impose sweeping “reciprocal” tariffs that could match those imposed by other countries on U.S. products. ([AP](https://apnews.com/article/trump-tariffs-liberation-day-2a031b3c16120a5672a6ddd01da09933))
It’s typical of the inherent difficulties of covering Trump that the top story of the day is based as much on speculation and anticipation as on hard facts. Assuming the tariffs are even announced today as promised, they will provide specific numbers for analysts to determine their potential impact and foreign governments to formulate their response.
The structure and targets of the tariffs will also give foreign policy observers like us here at WPR a better idea of what the actual goal of imposing them is, with debate still raging about whether they are meant to strategically defend and promote U.S. domestic manufacturing sectors, coerce other countries into better trade deals, restructure the entire global economy—or simply satisfy Trump’s oft-stated taste for tariffs.
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