U.S. officials indicating full reciprocal tariff action will take longer than April timeline to implement: WSJ

U.S. officials are privately indicating the full action on “reciprocal” tariffs will take longer than President Donald Trump’s April timeline to implement, the Wall Street Journal reported Friday, noting a raft of his tariff announcements are creating a “bottleneck” at relevant government agencies.

Officials are signaling that the full action will take more time — up to six months or even more, the daily said, citing people familiar with internal discussions, as Trump has reaffirmed April 2 as the date for reciprocal tariffs — duties to be imposed to match what other countries slap on American goods.

There will likely be an announcement on April 2, but the time frame is “too small” to fully analyze the tariffs and non-trade barriers of all countries, according to the newspaper.

The Trump administration has said that it will customize reciprocal tariffs based on trading partners’ duties, non-tariff barriers, exchange rate policies and other elements, such as their “unfair, discriminatory or extraterritorial” taxes, including a value-added tax.

Since taking office last month, Trump has made a series of announcements on tariffs, including the plan to impose 25 percent tariffs on all steel and aluminum imports, the threat to impose tariffs on Canadian and Mexican goods and his pursuit of duties on cars, chips and pharmaceuticals.

The president has been using tariffs as a key policy tool to pare down America’s trade deficits, boost domestic manufacturing and achieve other policy goals, such as stemming the inflow of unauthorized migrants and drugs, including fentanyl.