President Trump says a host of small countries should prepare for double-digit tariffs if they fail to reach trade agreements with the U.S. So what do countries like Cambodia export to the U.S.?
A MARTÍNEZ, HOST:
President Trump just last night threatened to impose a 35% tariff on Canada. That’s after he announced on Truth Social that 21 other countries would be subject to new tariffs. Those countries range from key trading partners, such as Japan, to nations that don’t export much to the U.S. at all.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
Trump says the U.S. delivered tariff letters to Moldova, Algeria, Libya and even Brunei, that tiny nation of less than half a million people. And that had us wondering – what difference would this actually make in the trade between those countries and this one? So we called Bill Reinsch. He’s an international trade expert at the bipartisan Center for Strategic and International Studies.
BILL REINSCH: For a lot of them, the trade with the United States is not that significant.
MARTÍNEZ: He says countries such as Serbia, Tunisia and Laos send maybe 1- to 2% of their exports to the United States. So if American companies start buying less from them, their economies wouldn’t necessarily suffer. But one exception is Cambodia.
REINSCH: We’re the largest trading partner of theirs, and they ship us $12 billion-plus worth of stuff every year, most of it apparel.
MARTIN: A potential 36% tariff on exports from Cambodia could set back the country’s garment industry.
REINSCH: They’ve been very successful over the years in not only building up an apparel industry in Cambodia but also building up one that pays appropriate wages and is not in the slave labor or exploitative category of some other countries.
MARTÍNEZ: And the effects could fall hard on one group of workers.
REINSCH: The many thousands of relatively poor women who make the apparel.
MARTIN: So what countries are in a position to ditch trade with the U.S. altogether? Reinsch says one might be Iraq, which is facing a 30% tariff.
REINSCH: There, for us, it’s all oil. Virtually all of the stuff that we buy from them is oil. That makes us their biggest trading partner.
MARTÍNEZ: But he says the good news for Iraq is that it probably would not have any trouble finding other buyers for their oil.
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