Unpredictability of Trump Regarding Tariff Implementation Could Create Long-term Problems

Trump continues to postpone his own deadlines. The announcement of a large-scale trade war has been delayed. Recently, the White House signed a decree imposing tariffs ranging from 15% to 41% on goods from over 60 countries.

However, it later became clear that the new tariffs by the U.S. president will not be introduced on August 1 as initially planned, but a week later — on August 7. According to American media, this delay was made to give customs and border services enough time to implement the necessary changes for collecting the new tariffs.

Oliver Roth, a capital market strategist at ODDO BHF bank in Germany, said:

"The fact that Donald Trump postponed the implementation of import tariffs is not a big surprise in itself, as this has become more of a modus operandi. Trump’s threats regarding tariffs usually are not as serious as feared and have less impact than expected. But Trump remains unpredictable. And this unpredictability increasingly creates serious, possibly long-term problems."

Trump also reminded that he intends to impose sanctions against Russia on August 8 if Moscow and Kyiv do not reach a peace agreement by then. However, he immediately clarified that there is no guarantee that the new sanctions will accelerate the resolution of the Ukrainian crisis.

"We will impose sanctions. I don’t know if Putin is worried about sanctions. You know, they know about sanctions. I know more about sanctions, tariffs, and everything else than anyone. I don’t know if it will have any effect, but we will do it. Europe is extremely upset. But this is a war that shouldn’t have happened. It wouldn’t have happened if I were president. And this is Biden’s war. It was foolish to get involved in this war; we shouldn’t have gotten involved," said Donald Trump.

Previously, Trump promised to impose a 100% tariff on Russian goods and to pressure Russian trading partners. In the coming days, Steven Witkoff, the U.S. president's special envoy to the Middle East, will travel to Moscow for negotiations.