President Trump February 13 signed a memorandum directing the Administration to conduct a review process to calculate and ultimately impose reciprocal tariffs on a country-by-country basis, accounting for both tariff rates and non-tariff barriers. Any new tariffs under the memo could be months away.

The memo described a "Fair and Reciprocal Plan" to counter non-reciprocal trading arrangements with trading partners by determining the equivalent of a reciprocal tariff with foreign trading partners through an examination of:

• tariffs imposed on US products
• unfair, discriminatory, or extraterritorial taxes, "including a value-added tax"
• costs to US businesses, workers, and consumers from nontariff barriers and unfair policies, including subsidies and burdensome regulatory requirements on US businesses operating overseas in other countries
• policies and practices that cause exchange rates to deviate from their market value
• any other practice that imposes any unfair limitation on market access or any structural impediment to fair competition

The review is to involve the United States Trade Representative, the Secretary of the Treasury, the Secretary of Commerce, the Senior Counselor to the President for Trade and Manufacturing, and others. "Within 180 days of the date of this memorandum, the Director of the Office of Management and Budget shall assess all fiscal impacts on the Federal Government and the impacts of any information collection requests on the public, and shall deliver an assessment in writing to the President," the memo said.

In remarks today, President Trump said there would be no exemptions from the potential tariffs. "Because you don't need to with reciprocal, you don't need to," he said.

The memo is attached below.

Prior deliverables are also available:

• An EY Alert, "United States issues Executive Orders imposing additional tariffs on Canada, Mexico and China," is available here.
• An EY Alert, "United States President signs 'America First Trade Policy' Presidential Memo," is available here.
• An EY article, "Steadying your company through trade shifts," is available here.
• An EY Webcast replay, "Tariffs are here: What companies need to do now," is available here.