Laptop computers from Taiwan, wine from Italy, frozen shrimp from India, Nike sneakers from Vietnam and Irish butter.
These products are found in homes across the United States, a testament to America’s enduring role as a champion of free trade and its standing as the most lucrative market for goods from around the world.
They are now among the vast categories of goods subject to additional taxes after President Trump, on Wednesday, imposed universal tariffs on all U.S. trade partners as well as additional, heavier duties on 60 countries he deemed the “worst offenders” of unfair trade practices.
In a sharp shift away from decades of trade policy, Mr. Trump instituted a 10 percent base line duty on all goods imported into the United States. In addition, other nations will be charged a so-called reciprocal tariff at an even higher rate next week.
For the European Union and China, the two largest U.S. trading partners, the White House imposed tariffs of 20 percent and 34 percent. The additional levy on China will be added to a 20 percent tariff previously imposed by Mr. Trump.
Even close allies such as Japan and South Korea were not spared. Neither were countries like Australia and Brazil that buy more from America than they sell to it.
The announcement, which Mr. Trump had hailed as America’s “Liberation Day,” sent shock waves across the world and raised the specter of a global trade war. Stock markets tumbled on the news, as investors were surprised at the size and scope of the tariffs.
In less than three months, Mr. Trump has pronounced tariffs on Canada, Mexico and China along with import duties on steel, aluminum, cars and car parts. The executive order on Wednesday included exemptions for semiconductors, pharmaceuticals and lumber. But analysts think those are not reprieves; they are products next to be targeted.
Allies and adversaries are scrambling to make sense of Mr. Trump’s tariff barrage, which has lifted U.S. import duties to their highest levels in more than a century and showed no sign of relenting. Some threatened to retaliate. Others openly pressed for negotiations, while some quietly pushed for concessions through back channels.
China accused America of “unilateral bullying,” pledging to take “firm countermeasures to safeguard its own rights and interests.” South Korea convened an emergency task force and vowed to “pour all government resources to overcome a trade crisis.” In Brazil, the government of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva said it was evaluating retaliatory measures.
In an early morning address on Thursday, Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission, said that the global economy will “massively suffer” from the tariffs. While urging negotiation, she said the bloc is preparing further countermeasures in addition to the retaliatory tariffs it had already prepared for the earlier tax on foreign steel and aluminum.
Asia was particularly hard hit by Mr. Trump’s plan. Vietnam, a beneficiary of companies moving production out of China during the first Trump presidency, got slapped with a 46 percent levy. Taiwan, Thailand and Indonesia were all dealt import duties of more than 30 percent. The White House put a 26 percent tariff on imports from India.
For decades, exports have served as a pathway to economic prosperity for developing Asian countries emerging from conflict, crisis or poverty. The latest tariffs punished countries like Taiwan and Japan that have succeeded in modernizing their economies through trade, and they also darkened the prospects for poorer nations like Cambodia and Bangladesh still looking to follow that route.
Cambodia, a producer of clothing and footwear, was hit with a 49 percent tariff. The United States is the country’s largest export market.
“As a small country, we just want to survive,” said Sok Eysan, a spokesman for Cambodia’s ruling Cambodian People’s Party.
Mr. Trump has blamed the sale of inexpensive goods from these countries for the hollowing out of America’s manufacturing sector. But they have also helped to keep inflation at bay, lowering prices for U.S. consumers.
Sarang Shidore, director of the Global South program at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft in Washington, D.C., said the tariffs would hit several developing countries hardest, while encouraging much of the world to move more quickly toward an order without the United States at its center.
“When it comes to trade, we are very much in a multipolar world, and alternative markets exist. Though of course there will be pain and transaction costs in diversification,” he said.
Anthony Albanese, the prime minister of Australia, said his country would not respond with retaliatory tariffs, vowing Australia would not “join a race to the bottom that leads to higher prices and slower growth.”
In Japan, officials and trade experts were caught off guard by the size of the new tariff the country will face — 24 percent. It was particularly jarring given Japan’s average tariff on nonagricultural goods is among the lowest globally. Japan called the tariff “extremely regrettable” and vowed to continue seeking an exemption.
Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba has pledged to increase Japanese investment to roughly $1 trillion, focusing on purchasing more U.S. products like liquefied natural gas.
Speaking before the latest tariffs were announced, Takeshi Niinami, chief executive of Suntory Holdings, a Japanese beverage giant known for premium whiskey brands, said he believed the tariffs could be negotiated down because Japan is the biggest foreign investor in the United States.
“A period of chaos may ensue,” he said. “But ultimately, the situation will stabilize.”
Exiger, a data analytics firm, calculated that Trump’s announcements would result in $600 billion of new U.S. tariffs per year. The bulk of the levy would come from 10 countries, with Chinese exports accounting for a quarter of the additional tariffs at $149 billion. Vietnamese goods would face $63 billion, Taiwanese products $37 billion, and Japanese exports $36 billion in tariffs. German and Irish goods combined would face $41 billion in additional levies.
During the first Trump presidency, tech companies moved some production to Vietnam to protect against a possible trade war with China. One-third of Vietnam’s exports are now electronics.
Apple moved manufacturing of AirPods, watches and iPads over the last several years to Vietnam. It also shifted some iPhone production to India, after years of relying solely on Chinese factories.
South Korean conglomerate Samsung Electronics has invested more than $20 billion in Vietnam since it started opening factories there nearly two decades ago. It now produces more goods in Vietnam than China. Last year, it produced roughly $70 billion worth of goods at its Vietnamese factories, most of it for export.
Mr. Trump’s policies are also complicating decisions for smaller American businesses. Brenden McMorrow, co-founder of Move2Play, a toymaker based in Torrance, Calif., said the company built all of its products in China since it started about nine years ago. But it began to consider factories in Vietnam or India to protect against Chinese import tariffs.
In Vietnam, it found that the factories run by Chinese companies using materials from China were not much cheaper. Instead, it decided to try a test run of manufacturing one of its toys in India — a decision that Mr. McMorrow said looks better with the lofty tariff imposed on Vietnam. It studied whether it could manufacture in the United States, but he said that the costs were roughly five times higher than in China.
And despite the higher cost of tariffs, he doesn’t see U.S. production as any more viable now.
“I don’t think it really makes sense to invest in trying to do a lot of this manufacturing in the U.S. If the next president comes in and just reverses course on all these tariffs, then you’re going to be in a terrible spot,” he said. “It makes more sense to just kind of stick to where we’re currently manufacturing and not make big risky moves.”
Damien Cave, Jack Nicas, Victoria Kim, Alex Travelli, Choe Sang-Hun, Sui-Lee Wee and David Pierson contributed reporting.
