Prices might go up “somewhat” as a consequence, but any country levying tariffs against U.S. goods will soon face equal sized reciprocal tariffs, President Donald Trump has declared.

Trump made the announcement Thursday morning via his Truth Social account, proclaiming his first three weeks historically successful but calling today “the big one.”

“RECIPROCAL TARIFFS!!! MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN,” the commander-in-chief wrote, capitalization his.

Trump later signed a memorandum directing several Cabinet secretaries to come up with a plan for reducing the nation’s trade deficit with other countries via reactionary tariffs.

According to the memorandum, the U.S. trade deficit is both an economic and a national security threat that has “hollowed out our industrial base, has reduced our overall national competitiveness, and has made our Nation dependent on other countries to meet our key security needs.” In 2024, according to U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis, the annual trade deficit for goods and services stood at $918.4 billion.

“By making trade more reciprocal and balanced, we can reduce the trade deficit; grow the United States economy; and improve our trade relationships with trading partners to the benefit of American workers, manufacturers, farmers, ranchers, entrepreneurs, and businesses,” Trump’s order, reads, in part.

While speaking to reporters gathered in the Oval Office, Trump seemed to acknowledge that the price of consumer goods might go up as a result of his tariff plan, but simultaneously suggested that might “not necessarily” be the case and that prices might stay the same or go down. He said several times that the end result would be an American manufacturing boom and more jobs.

“Prices could go up somewhat in the short term, but prices will also go down,” he said, before adding that “nobody really knows what’s going to happen, other than jobs are going to be produced at levels we haven’t seen before.”

Trump’s policy is one already employed against the U.S., he said, offering both India and China as examples.

India, Trump said, “traditionally is the highest, just about the highest tariff country. They charge more tariffs than any other country,” while China, Trump said, “did it at a level probably nobody’s ever seen before.”

Tariffs would apply to any country that applies tariffs on American goods or that charge “unfair, discriminatory, or extraterritorial taxes” or value-added taxes imposed on U.S. “businesses, workers, and consumers.”

Reciprocal tariffs could also come if a country using “nontariff barriers” like local laws, policies or practices costs U.S. business money, according to the memorandum. Policies or regulations impacting currency exchanges could also lead to tariffs, according to the president.

The U.S. government could also levy tariffs, according to Trump’s order, for “any unfair limitation on market access or any structural impediment to fair competition with the market economy of the United States.”

“Whatever they charge us, we’re charging them,” Trump said.

Trump said that it’s about time the U.S. fought back against our trade partners.

“This should have been done years ago,” he said.

Howard Lutnick, Trump’s pick to lead the Department of Commerce, suggested a plan for reciprocal tariffs could be presented to the president to sign as an executive order by April 2. Lutnick suggested countries avoid paying the tariffs by eliminating their duties on American goods, but there is perhaps an even easier way for countries to avoid tariffs, according to the president.

“If you build your product in the United States, there are no tariffs,” Trump said.

According to the nonpartisan group the Tax Foundation, Trump’s tariff plans could ultimately cause the U.S. economy to contract, not grow as the president has suggested, and that’s even assuming that our trade partners don’t react with retaliatory trade policies of their own.

“We estimate the tariffs on Canada and Mexico would reduce long-run GDP by 0.3 percent, the tariffs on China by 0.1 percent, and the expanded steel and aluminum tariffs by less than 0.05 percent, all before foreign retaliation,” they wrote in a report released Thursday.