Donald Trump recently announced a sweeping new tariff system that has drawn widespread criticism for its methodology and potential economic impact. The tariffs impose a baseline 10% tax on all imports, with additional rates for specific countries, such as 34% on China, 46% on Vietnam, and 20% on the European Union. Critics have labeled these tariffs as "short-sighted" and lacking a logical foundation, comparing them to policies from the Great Depression era.

Observers noted that the formula used to calculate the tariffs appears to be overly simplistic and potentially influenced by AI chatbots. Economists reverse-engineered the calculations and found they mirrored suggestions made by chatbots like Grok and Claude, which proposed halving the trade deficit-to-export ratio to determine tariff rates. While the White House denied relying on AI for these calculations, the official formula it released includes constants that appear to have no meaningful effect on the outcomes.

The tariffs are expected to disrupt global supply chains and significantly raise consumer prices in the U.S., particularly for goods like electronics, clothing, and food. Despite claims that these measures will boost domestic manufacturing, critics argue that many of the targeted imports cannot realistically be produced in the U.S., either due to resource limitations or economic inefficiency. The announcement has also sparked confusion, as some targeted territories are uninhabited or already maintain trade surpluses with the U.S.

Overall, the tariffs have been criticized for their lack of economic coherence and their reliance on a calculation method that some believe was inspired by rudimentary AI suggestions.

Citations: [1] https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2025/04/trump-tariffs-ai-math-penguins.html [2] https://www.theverge.com/news/642240/trump-tariffs-imports-apple-manufacturing [3] https://www.cnbc.com/2025/04/03/trump-tariffs-live-updates-stock-market-trade-war.html [4] https://gizmodo.com/did-trump-use-chatgpt-to-determine-disastrous-new-tariffs-2000584894 [5] https://www.theverge.com/2025/1/27/24353388/trump-tariffs-chips-act-ai-deepseek [6] https://politicalwire.com/2025/04/03/trumps-tariff-math-likely-came-from-an-ai-chatbot/ [7] https://www.theverge.com/news/642601/donald-trump-tariffs-de-minimis-shein-temu [8] https://www.theverge.com/tech/607947/donald-trump-tariffs-china-mexico-canada-explainer [9] https://www.theverge.com/news/641752/tra [10] https://altana.ai/resources/verge-decoder-podcast