(March 27): US President Donald Trump said he plans to impose reciprocal levies on every nation as part of his sweeping tariff push next week, but said the rates would be lower than expected.

“We are going to make it all countries, and we are going to make it very lenient,” Trump told reporters on Wednesday in the Oval Office. “I think people are going to be very surprised. It will be, in many cases, less than the tariff that they have been charging us for decades.”

“We have not been treated nicely by other countries, but we are going to be nice. So I think people will be pleasantly surprised,” he added.

Trump said that the 25% auto tariffs he was announcing would go into effect on April 2, when he’s planning his broader roll-out. 

Asked if he would also announce tariffs on April 2 for specific sectors, such as semiconductor chips or pharmaceuticals, Trump said “not then, but we will be putting a tariff on lumber”.

The US president outlined his thinking on the reciprocal tariffs while speaking to reporters to unveil his plans on a 25% levy on foreign car imports, another plank of his vision to overhaul the nation’s relationships with trading partners.

Trump has promised a sweeping tariff announcement next Wednesday, touting it as a “Liberation Day” against trading partners he has long accused of “ripping off” the US. Trump has yet to detail the exact size, scope and method of those import duties.

In an interview on Tuesday, Trump said he didn’t want “too many exceptions” in the reciprocal tariffs, suggesting that companies and countries may have limited room to negotiate a reprieve for their goods.

The president, however, has rolled out his tariffs plans in a haphazard fashion, frequently delaying imposing the taxes or walking back earlier pronouncements. 

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