Trump vows tariffs on nations that 'harm' US; names India, China as high-tariff countries

President Trump plans to impose tariffs on countries like China, India, and Brazil to prioritize American interests and economy.

The United States will impose tariffs on the countries that "harm" America, President Donald Trump has said, as he named China, India and Brazil as high-tariff countries.

“We're going to put tariffs on outside countries and outside people that really mean harm to us. Well, they mean us harm, but they basically want to make their country good,” Mr. Trump told House Republicans at a Florida retreat on Monday (January 27, 2025), the first after he became the President for the second term last week.

“Look at what others do. China is a tremendous tariff maker, and India and Brazil and so many other countries. So we're not going to let that happen any longer because we're going to put America first,” he said.

He said that the U.S. will establish a "very fair system where money is going to come into our coffers and America is going to be very rich again", adding that it will happen "very quickly".

Mr. Trump underscored that it was time for the U.S. to return to the system that made it "richer and more powerful than ever before.”

Referring to his inaugural speech last week, Mr. Trump said: “Instead of taxing our citizens to enrich foreign nations, we should be tariffing and taxing foreign nations to enrich our citizens."

"Under the American first economic model, as tariffs on other countries go up, taxes on American workers and businesses will come down and massive numbers of jobs and factories will come home,” he said.