Critics of President Trump’s April 2, 2025, executive order on tariffs argue that the policy lacks clarity or direction. Yet the order is anything but vague. In fact, it offers one of the most detailed diagnoses of America’s structural trade imbalances in decades—backed by specific data, a national security framework, and a roadmap for restoring fairness in global trade.
The problem isn’t the order’s content—it’s that few critics have bothered to read it.
At the heart of the executive order is the assertion that large and persistent U.S. goods trade deficits—totaling $1.2 trillion in 2024 and up over 40% in just five years—represent an “unusual and extraordinary threat” to America’s economy and national security.
These deficits, it explains, are not merely the result of market forces but the product of “disparate tariff rates and non-tariff barriers” erected by America’s trading partners.
The order doesn’t just assert this—it proves it. According to the World Trade Organization, the U.S. has one of the world’s lowest simple average Most-Favored-Nation (MFN) tariff rates at 3.3%.
In comparison: Brazil charges 11.2%, China 7.5%, the European Union 5.0%, India 17%, and Vietnam 9.4%.
The imbalance becomes even more striking in specific sectors. The U.S. imposes just a 2.5% tariff on passenger vehicle imports with internal combustion engines, while the EU charges 10%, China 15%, and India a staggering 70%. On network switches and routers, the U.S. imposes no tariff at all, but India levies 10%.
For apples, the U.S. allows duty-free imports; meanwhile, India charges 50% and Turkey over 60%. These are not rhetorical flourishes—they are hard data used effectively to show just how unreciprocated U.S. market access has become.
More importantly, the order does not treat trade policy as a narrow economic matter—it places it squarely within the realm of national security.
Hellbound and Down 