Image source, Reuters

Trump ends his long-awaited tariff announcement, Liberation Day, as he's called it, slow-strolling past a row of American flags and shouts from reporters.

The main question heard from the crowd of reporters is what happens if other countries retaliate, sparking a trade war that economists warn no one will win.

The unanswered question will linger in the days to come as world leaders calculate their responses.

"We're going to have a very free and beautiful nation. It's going to be Liberation Day in America," Trump said, as he began to wrap up his speech.

"And it's going to be a day that you're hopefully going to look back on in years to come. And you're going to say: 'You know, he was right. This has turned out to be one of the most important days in the history of our country.'"

Trump also boasted about his administration's accomplishments as he approaches 100 days in office this term.

He mentioned some of his goals, including ending and preventing conflict around the world.

"[I'd] like to see if we can get that war ended [in Ukraine], and another war from not starting in the Middle East," he said.

Image source, Reuters

Trump has concluded his speech and is now sitting at a desk to sign the relevant executive orders.

He holds them up as he does so and is met with applause.

We'll bring you the final remarks from his speech shortly.

Trump has taken a quick break from tariff-talk to pivot to other domestic issues, beginning with immigration.

He asks Kristi Noem, the Department of Homeland Security head, to stand for applause along with his appointed "border czar" Tom Homan.

"Now we have a border that's the best border that we've ever had," Trump says.

Trump says the US wants immigrants that "come in legally", adding that "we need more people" to fill the jobs he expects to create.

"We need people to run these plants and to help the auto workers and the Teamsters and the non-union people and everybody else," he says.

"They have to have the capability of loving our country, not people that hate our country."

"Every Republican congressman and senator must unify," in order to pass a budget that Trump can support, he says.

"From this day on we're not gonna let anyone tell American workers and families that they cannot have the future that they deserve."

He says that America's future will be built with "American hands, with American hearts, and American Steel".

Now we wait for the world to respondpublished at 21:54 British Summer Time 2 April

21:54 BST 2 April

Faisal Islam
Economics editor

At its heart this is a universal tariff of 10% on all imports into the US for everyone, coming in on Friday night. On top of that, dozens of “worst offenders” will be charged reciprocally for their trade surpluses, tariffs and host of other barriers from VAT to food standards.

There is a provision to hit back even harder if other countries retaliate, “because the emergency would be bigger”.

As one White House official said bluntly “this is not a negotiation, it’s a national emergency”. It is, they said, about the “regulation of imports”. The focus the advisers said should not be on the tariffs but on the other barriers to US exports.

The aim of the policy is to get the trade deficits “back to zero”.

The question now is how the rest of the world responds.

More on that large chart Trump was holding up earlier. It contains some numbers and detail worth examining.

On the left-hand column is a list of countries, next to a column titled "Tariffs Charged to the USA Including Currency Manipulation and Trade Barriers".

On the far right is another column titled "USA Discounted Reciprocal Tariffs", which shows a list of the new tariffs announced today.

Here's a printed copy of the first half of the chart handed out to reporters in the Rose Garden:

Bernd Debusmann Jr
Reporting from the White House

Image source, Reuters

As with many Trump events, this one comes with props - in this case a chart brought out by Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick.

But besides the specifics of the tariffs, there has been little new material to Trump's comments today.

His speech reminds me of those I heard - repeatedly - on the campaign trail last year, as well as here in the White House during his administration so far.

Some of his comments, for example, have focused on the previous administration of Joe Biden, whom he has repeatedly blamed for the state of the US economy.

For his supporters, today will likely be pointed to as an example of what the Trump team has termed "promises made, promises kept" and Trump's vows to "put Americans first".

Trump says that during his first term, he had been making plans to institute reciprocal tariffs.

But he notes that after a "bad election" in 2020, in which he lost to Joe Biden, he had a "monumental win" last November.

"This will be an entirely different country in a short period of time. The whole world will be talking about it," he says.

He goes on to discuss the high prices of eggs, and claims that the steep rise is not his fault.

"I just got here," he remembers saying shortly after taking office.

Trump says he has great respect for China and President Xi but they've been "taking tremendous advantage" of the US.

Other leaders take care of their countries, implementing large tariffs on US imports, Trump says, adding that the US is going to do the same.

"We have to start taking care of our country now," he says.

As he paints his picture of a renewed American economy boosted by broad tariffs, he says "empty, dead" manufacturing plants and "factories falling down" will be replaced by new ones.

"Brand new, the best anywhere in the world."

Trump now lists a number of companies he says are investing money in the US. He includes Apple which he says has committed to spending $500bn, and he also cites Nvidia, Johnson and Johnson and Meta.

The president says it represents a total of $6 trillion of investments.

"That's going to be much higher by the end of the year."

"There will never have been a transformation of a country like the transformation that's already happening in the United States of America," Trump continues, after noting that he's been in office for only two months.

"It's an incredible thing to watch."

He claims that US workers and companies are greeting his tariff announcement with enthusiasm.

"There will be complaints from globalists, special interests and fake news," he says, adding that all those critics have been wrong about US trade policy over the last 30 years.

Trump says that companies that build their products in the US will pay zero tariffs.

"There's no tariff if you build your product right here in America," Trump says.

The president says "soon" he will be getting calls from kings, queens and ambassadors looking for tariff exemptions.

His message to them is: "Terminate your own tariffs, drop your barriers, don't manipulate your currencies.. and start buying tens of billions of dollars of American goods."

Trump says other nations have treated the US "badly", charging disproportionate tariffs on US imports that he likens to "cheating".

In turn, the US will charge other countries "approximately half" of what they are charging the US.

"So, the tariffs will not be a full reciprocal. I could have done that, yes, but it would have been tough for a lot of countries," Trump says.

"We didn't want to do that."

Trump has just announced a "minimum baseline tariff" of 10% on other countries to "help rebuild" the US economy.

It will come into effect on 5 April.

Trump is now holding up a large chart showing a table titled "Reciprocal Tariffs", which compares tariffs imposed by other countries on the US versus Washington's own levies.

It displays a 10% tariff on imports from UK and 20% on EU imports.

"They charge us, we charge them. How can anybody be upset?" he says.

Among others, he singles out China and the European Union. "They rip us off. It's so sad to see. It's so pathetic."

"India," he says, "very tough. Very, very tough."

Trump continues, saying that US companies are unable to produce enough antibiotics.

"We import virtually all of our computers, phones, TVs and electronics," he says.

He claims that a single shipyard in China is churning out more ships that all of America's shipyards do each year.

The trade deficit represents "a national emergency that threatens our security and threatens our way of life".

"For this reason, starting tomorrow the US will implement reciprocal tariffs on other nation."

Trump says it's not too late, and vows to make the US wealthy again.

"They've taken so much of our wealth away from us," he says. "We're not going to let that happen."

Trump says the US can no longer afford to hold trade deficits with other countries, suggesting the US has been subsidising them for too long.

"We take care of countries all over the world," he laments, and says it's time the US took care of its own people.

Trump says that between the late 18th century and early 20th century the US was "proportionately the wealthiest it has ever been".

"So wealthy in fact," Trump continues, "we were collecting so much money so fast, we didn't know what to do with it."

Trump says that in 1913, income tax was placed on US citizens "for reasons unknown to mankind".

"They established the income tax so that citizens, rather than foreign countries, would start paying the money necessary to run our government," Trump says.