Who are the winners and losers?

Penguins have been offered a certain relief. The inhabitants of Switzerland, Laos and Syria, not so much.

It is the unlikely mixture of winners and losers from the finalized list of President Donald Trump’s rates, that governments, markets and businesses around the world have confused to give meaning to Friday.

Some countries, such as Canada and South Africa, have reacted with a serious disappointment, warning that Trump’s decree could cause job losses worldwide and an increase in costs for Americans. For others, the damage was not as bad as they are planned, some capable of concluding agreements before its deadline, and others hope to hit one in the future.

The president had already attracted confusion and alarm during the unveiling of his list of prices in April.

Many analysts have asked, for example, why he imposed a 10% levy on Heard and McDonald – two Antarctic outposts populated only with penguins – or slap a colossal rate of 50% on the depleted South African nation of Lesotho.

The finalized list of this week has caused a stay but also dismaying – often with little or no explanation.

The most difficult import taxes have been slapped on Syria (41%), Laos and Myanmar (40%), three relatively poor nations with, at best, modest trade relations with Washington. And Iraq, Serbia (35%) and Algeria (30%) also found themselves submitted to Trump’s executive pen.

(Brazil faces its own 50% separate price as a punishment for what Trump says it is a “witch hunt” against its former president and his right ally, Jair Bolsonaro, who is accused of having plotted a coup.)

Elsewhere Thursday, the rate of 50% of Lesotho was reduced to 15% – but not before huge damage is already caused. The initial rate has seen American buyers stop orders, thousands of people losing their jobs and the government declaring a disaster state.

Meanwhile, the Heard and McDonald Islands and its inhabitants of birds without theft dodged the price that Trump threatened to impose on Australia, which has the islands, and remained at the rate of 10% announced for the first time in April.

It is “difficult to know if there is a logic” to decipher why some countries have been so hard so hard while others have been spared, said David Henig, a commercial expert at the European Center for the International Political Economy, a group of reflection based in Brussels.

Without a detailed explanation of the White House, Hénig told NBC News, the calculations were most likely based on the previous formula used by Washington which placed the biggest prices on the countries with the largest trade surpluses.

By announcing the prices on Thursday, Trump said that these surpluses “constitute an unusual and extraordinary threat to national security and the economy of the United States”. (Many economists do not agree that the American trade deficit is intrinsically a bad thing,, And its prices are the subject of an ongoing legal struggle which will probably find itself at the Supreme Court.)

Although the international tumult above the Lesotho meant that it had a stay, other nations may have seen their prices maintain or even increase because they were not the most manifestly treated developing countries, “said Hénig.

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comments from NBC News on its justification.

It is not only places to develop or obscure places feeling the heat of Trump taxes.

Switzerland – One of the richest nations in terms of gross domestic product per capita – woke up on Friday to find that it had been slapped with a colossal rate of 39%, which its government noted with “great regret”.

This could express trouble for Swiss chocolate and luxury watches, for which the United States is the largest market, with actions for watches in Switzerland Group PLC of 8.5% after the new Friday.

India also drew attention as an American ally struck with a large price of 25%, but rejected any suggestion of a rift, with the spokesman for the ministry of merchandise Randhir Jaiswal saying that the most populated nation in the world was “confident that the relationship will continue to move forward”.

In Southeast Asia, on the other hand, where exports to the United States increased as manufacturers change their production in China, the reaction was generally relief.

Thailand and Cambodia, which simply agreed with a cease-fire after a five-day border conflict that killed more than 40 people, praised their 19% rate like “win-win” and “good news”, while Malaysia described its own rate as a “positive result”. Cambodia had been threatened by 49%.

Coherence creates a fair playground for the governments of Southeast Asia – with Indonesia and the Philippines at the same rate, and 20% for Vietnam – after worrying Trump’s prices could promote certain countries to others.

Taiwan, a technological center which has a significant trade surplus with the United States, was affected by a rate of 20%, less than 32% threatened in April but greater than 15% negotiated by Japan, South Korea and the European Union. President Lai CHING-TE said on Friday that the 20% rate was “temporary” and that his government expected to negotiate a lower number.

Still in the air, the final tariff rates between the United States and China, the two largest economies in the world, which shaken the world markets this spring while they imposed spiral withdrawals for both parties before putting the most break until August 12.

The Treasury Secretary, Scott Bessent, said after meeting Chinese commerce this week that a potential extension of this break could not be confirmed until Trump signed.

“China’s position on prices is consistent and clear,” the spokesman for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Guo Jiakun said on Friday. “There are no winners in tariff wars or commercial wars.”

Alexander Smith reported in London and Jennifer Jett reported to Hong Kong.