Trump's 'Liberation Day' tariffs to come into effect immediately after announcement: White House

US President Donald Trump - File Photo

US President Donald Trump’s reciprocal tariffs will come into effect immediately after they are announced on Wednesday, the White House said today.

“My understanding is that the tariff announcement will come tomorrow. They will be effective immediately, and the president has been teasing this for quite some time,” White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters on Tuesday.

Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt Briefs Members of the Media, Apr. 1, 2025 https://t.co/xiK0WTIazI
The White House (@WhiteHouse) April 1, 2025

Trump has the world's leading economies on edge as he prepares to unveil a promised raft of tariffs that could trigger a cascading global trade war.

He has kept rivals and allies alike guessing about who would be targeted and by how much, but promised to be "very kind" when addressing what he has dubbed "Liberation Day" on Wednesday.

Fears of a trade war have left the markets rattled, fuelling concerns about a potential recession in the US. The President has reiterated his commitment to imposing a set of reciprocal tariffs on nations that levy duties on U.S. exports, vowing to match those countries' tariffs.

Trump has not provided much in the way of details about the targets of the expected reciprocal measures, or their size. Last week, Trump hinted that he might soften his approach, potentially setting tariff rates lower than what some countries currently impose on US goods.

“We are going to be very nice, relatively speaking. We are going to be very kind,” the president said, before launching into a strangely intimate digression. He spoke of someone who didn’t know him well who offered him a compliment recently. “They said — ‘You are such a kind person’ and I said, ‘Say that again.’ They said, ‘You are a kind person.’ I said, ‘I’ve never heard that before.’”