International Trade War 2025 Officially Begins

The drumbeat of tariff wars and international trade was officially sounded by US President Donald Trump. On Wednesday, April 2, 2025, at the Rose Garden, US White House, President Trump announced the imposition of import tariffs or duties on 180 countries. The declaration of new tariffs titled liberation day, according to President Trump, is actually a reciprocal tariff imposed by the affected countries on US products. 

The impact of this policy is very systemic and complicated, countries such as China, Canada, have loudly stated that they will retaliate against the tariffs imposed by Trump. Meanwhile, US trading partners or alliances such as Australia and Japan deeply regret Trump's new policy. Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, for example, stated that Trump's new tariffs have no logical basis. Similarly, Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba clearly deplored Trump's tariff policy and believed that the move violated the rules of the World Trade Organization (WTO).

Source: cnbc.com

ASEAN countries and almost all countries around the world are not spared from Trump's tariff war policy. Indonesia is subject to import duty rates of 32 percent, Malaysia 24 percent, Thailand 36 percent, Vietnam 46 percent, Singapore 10 percent, Philippines 17 percent, Cambodia 49 percent, Myanmar 44 percent, Brunei 24 percent, and Laos 48 percent. While countries such as China are subject to import duties of 34 percent, the European Union 20 percent, the United Kingdom, 10 percent, Japan 24 percent, Australia 10 percent, India 26 percent, Brazil 10 percent, Ukraine 10 percent, South Africa 30 percent, Turkey 10 percent.

This is a manifestation of the America first policy that Trump sold during the campaign. Everything is done to make America great even though it has to hit the world trade order that has been going well. With policies like this, the world will face trade wars in the future. Countries that feel aggrieved will immediately reply to the policy by imposing a similar tariff war on the United States. One of the most visible direct impacts after the announcement of tariff duties on goods from 180 countries to the US is the increase in world gold prices. According to CNBC data, the price of the precious metal gold after Trump's new tariff announcement touched the price of 3,180 US dollars per troy ounce, the highest in history.

The trade war policy declared by Trump is really effective in making the global economy turbulent. Economic players, in this case global investors, move quickly to secure their wealth or financial portfolios to relatively safe assets (safe haven) such as gold so that this commodity then becomes expensive due to high market demand. It can be understood that international economic players do not want their assets to be affected by the turmoil of the trade war that Trump has kicked off and not to mention the geopolitical turmoil in the Middle East where the United States is also playing there.