The best lawyer for the Trump’s prices investment treaty while dust settles: “ In many ways, everyone is a loser here ”

The closest thing to the winners can be the countries that have given in to Trump’s requests – and have avoided even more pain. But it is not clear if someone will be able to win the long -term victory – even the United States, the beneficiary targeted with Trump’s protectionist policies.

“In many ways, everyone is a loser here,” said Barry Appleton, co -director of the Center for International Law at New York Law School.

Barely six months after his return to the White House, Trump demolished the former world economic order. Finished that built on the agreed rules. In its place is a system in which Trump himself establishes the rules, using the enormous economic power of America to punish countries which will not accept unilateral trade agreements and the extraction of huge concessions from those who do it.

“The biggest winner is Trump,” said Alan Wolff, former US trade official and deputy director of the World Trade Organization. “He bet that he could bring other countries to the table on the basis of threats, and he succeeded – spectacularly.”

Everything is up to Trump to call “liberation day” – April 2 – when the president announced “reciprocal” taxes of up to 50% on imports from countries with which the United States has carried out trade deficits and 10% of “basic” taxes on almost everyone.

He invoked a 1977 law to declare the trade deficit a national emergency which justified his radical import taxes. This allowed him to bypass the congress, which has traditionally had authority on taxes, including the prices – which are all now disputed in court.

The winners will always pay higher prices than before Trump takes up his duties

Trump retired temporarily after his announcement of the Liberation Day sparked a rout on the financial markets and suspended the reciprocal rates for 90 days to give countries a chance to negotiate.

Finally, some of them did it, yielding to Trump’s requests to pay what would have seemed to have been unthinkively high prices for the privilege of continuing to sell on the vast American market.

The United Kingdom agreed with 10% tariffs on its exports to the United States-against 1.3% before Trump could increase his trade war with the world. The United States required concessions even if it had led a trade surplus, not a deficit, with the United Kingdom for 19 consecutive years.

The European Union and Japan have accepted US prices by 15%. These are much higher than the low -figure rates they paid last year – but lower than the prices it threatened (30% on the EU and 25% on Japan).

Pakistan, South Korea, Vietnam, Indonesia and the Philippines.

Even the countries that have seen their prices lowered from April without concluding an agreement always pay much higher prices than before Trump is in office. Angola’s price, for example, fell to 15%, compared to 32%in April, but in 2022, it was less than 1.5%. And while the Trump administration reduced Taiwan’s tariff to 20%, compared to 32% in April, the pain will always be felt.

“20% from the start have not been our goal, we hope that in additional negotiations, we will obtain a more beneficial and reasonable tax rate,” Taiwan president of Taiwan, Lai Ching-Te, Taipei on Friday.

Trump also agreed to reduce the tiny kingdom of Southern Africa of Lesotho to 15% compared to the 50% he announced in April, but the damage may have already been caused.

Bashing Brazil, Tobber Canada, Shelacking the Swiss

Countries that have not struck under – and those who found other ways to encourage Trump’s anger – were harder.

Even some poor countries have not been spared. The annual economic production of Laos amounts to $ 2,100 per person and $ 5,600 in Algeria – against US $ 75,000. Nevertheless, Laos was switched to a price of 40% and Algeria with a 30% tax.

Trump criticized Brazil with an import tax of 50% largely because he did not like the way he treated former Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro, who was tried for trying to lose his electoral defeat in 2022. It does not matter that the United States has exported to Brazil that imports every year since 2007.

Trump of plaster’s decision a 35% price on Ally Ally ALLY Canada was partly designed to threaten Ottawa for declaring that she would recognize a Palestinian state. Trump is a fervent supporter of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Switzerland was filled with an import tax of 39% – even higher than the 31% of Trump originally announced on April 2.

“The Swiss probably want to have camped in Washington” to conclude an agreement, Wolff said, now the main member of the Peterson Institute for International Economics. “They are clearly not happy at all.”

Fortune can change if Trump’s prices are upset in court. Five American companies and 12 states are pursuing the president, arguing that his Liberation Day rates exceeded his authority under the 1977 law.

In May, the American Court of International Trade, a specialized court in New York, accepted and blocked the prices, although the government was authorized to collect them while its appeal was making its way through the legal system, and could probably end up at the United States Supreme Court. During a hearing on Thursday, the judges of the American Court of Appeal for the Federal Circuit were skeptical of Trump’s justifications for prices.

“If (the prices) are struck, then maybe Brazil is a winner and not a loser,” said Appleton.

Pay more for backpacks and video games

Trump depicts his prices as a tax on foreign countries. But they are in fact paid by import companies in the United States who try to transmit cost to their customers via higher prices. Admittedly, prices can affect other countries by forcing their exporters to reduce prices and sacrifice profits – or risk losing market share in the United States.

But the economists of Goldman Sachs believe that exporters abroad absorbed only fifth of the costs of the rise in prices, while the Americans and American companies have taken the most from the tab.

Walmart, Procter & Gamble, Ford, Best Buy, Adidas, Nike, Mattel and Stanley Black & Decker, all have rising prices due to American rates

“This is a tax on consumption, so it disproportionately affects those who have lower income,” said Appleton. “Sneakers, backpacks … Your devices will go up. Your TV and electronics will go up. Your video game devices, the consoles are up because nothing of these is done in America. ”

Trump’s trade war pushed the average American rate by 2.5% at the beginning of 2025 to 18.3% now, the highest since 1934, according to the LAB budget of the University of Yale. And this will impose a cost of $ 2,400 on the average household, estimates the laboratory.

“The American consumer is a big loser,” said Wolff.

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The writer AP Economics, Christopher Rugaber, contributed to this story.