![\"\"](\"https:\/\/static.euronews.com\/website\/images\/logos\/logo-euronews-stacked-outlined-72x72-grey-9.svg\"){kind=logo}
\n ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n
Portugal could face one of the larger increases in effective US tariffs on its exports if Washington ultimately lifts its new blanket import duty to 15%, according to estimates cited by Jornal de Neg\u00f3cios \u2014 but uncertainty over the final rate has unsettled exporters.<\/p>\n
\n ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n
\n ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n
The United States began applying a 10% global import duty on 24 February after President Donald Trump said he wanted the tariff set at 15%. The shift followed a US Supreme Court ruling on Friday that struck down Trump\u2019s earlier sweeping tariff plan.<\/p>\n
Hours before the measure took effect, the US agency overseeing customs circulated a memo to importers stating that \u201call countries will be charged a 10% duty for a period of 150 days, unless specifically exempted\u201d.<\/p>\n
US federal government sources quoted by the American press said Trump still intends to impose a 15% tariff under Section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974, but no date has been given for a formal presidential order authorising the increase.<\/p>\n
If the rate does rise to 15%, Jornal de Neg\u00f3cios reported that Portugal would be among the EU countries seeing the biggest jump in tariff costs, citing estimates by Belgian economist Eric Dor of France\u2019s I\u00c9SEG School of Management.<\/p>\n
Exemptions could soften the blow of tariffs<\/p>\n
Belgian economist Eric Dor told Euronews that the headline tariff rate can be misleading because the effective levy varies sharply by country, \u201cdepending on the composition of the products they export to the US\u201d.<\/p>\n
The legal text published by the US administration on Friday \u2014 setting out a single 10% duty \u2014 also lists exemptions for a range of goods, including pharmaceuticals and electronics. <\/p>\n
Dor said countries that export a larger share of exempt products would face a lower average tariff burden than those selling mainly non-exempt goods. He added that products with high steel or aluminium content remain subject to a 50% rate.<\/p>\n
That matters because the EU\u2013US trade arrangement struck last July set a 15% base rate on most EU exports to the United States, while keeping 50% duties on steel and aluminium, alongside a separate set of exemptions.<\/p>\n
Dor said that under that agreement, in December, \u201cthe average US tariff rate on imports from Portugal was just 8.54 per cent,\u201d compared with \u201c12.71 per cent on imports from Sweden\u201d. <\/p>\n
He added that the average rate was even lower for major exporters of exempt pharmaceutical products, including Ireland, Belgium and France.<\/p>\n
On that basis, Dor argued that Portugal would have ranked among the EU countries with the lowest average tariff rates on exports to the United States under the July deal, partly because some Portuguese exports were exempt and because Portugal ships relatively few products hit by the 50% steel and aluminium duty.<\/p>\n
The problem now, he warned, is that the exemption list attached to the new 10% global duty differs from the exemptions envisaged in the EU\u2013US agreement, creating \u201cgreat uncertainty\u201d for European exporters. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt is also unclear whether, for EU countries, the basic 15% tariff on non-exempt goods will be reduced to 10% or whether it will remain at 15 per cent,\u201d Dor said.<\/p>\n
If a single 15% tariff were applied across the board, Portugal would be the eighth EU country facing the biggest increase \u2014 around 6.5%, Dor said \u2014 though he stressed that outcome would depend on duties being applied to all goods, and noted that \u201cthe legal text released on Friday mentions many exempt goods\u201d, which could soften the hit.<\/p>\n
Would a 10 per cent tax have a different impact?<\/p>\n
Dor said there would be no change in Portugal\u2019s position if the tariff applied to EU countries stays at 10%.<\/p>\n
\u201cMechanically, Portugal would still have the eighth biggest difference,\u201d he told Euronews, but stressed that claims Portugal would be the EU\u2019s eighth most affected country rest on \u201cwrong or uncertain assumptions\u201d because they do not account for exemptions.<\/p>\n
Dor underlined that the legal document published on Friday contains \u201cmany exemptions\u201d, and that these appear to differ significantly from those set out in last summer\u2019s EU\u2013US agreement.<\/p>\n
\u201cClarification is therefore needed before the new average customs duties on imports [from] each EU country can be calculated,\u201d he concluded.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Portugal could face one of the larger increases in effective US tariffs on its exports if Washington ultimately…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":447262,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[84,1294,1295,3517,1186,56,54,158,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-447261","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-economy","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-economy","10":"tag-international-trade","11":"tag-portugal","12":"tag-trump-tariffs","13":"tag-uk","14":"tag-united-kingdom","15":"tag-united-states","16":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/447261","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=447261"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/447261\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/447262"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=447261"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=447261"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=447261"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}