‘Extraordinary nonsense’: US author slams Trump’s 'bad math' on tariffs, says it ignores services, White House pushes back

Journalist and author James Surowiecki Thursday called out the Trump administration’s methodology for calculating its new "reciprocal" tariffs, arguing that the numbers are based on a misleading formula. In a series of tweets, Surowiecki claimed that rather than measuring actual tariff and non-tariff barriers, the administration is simply dividing the US trade deficit with each country by the total value of imports from that country.

"So we have a $17.9 billion trade deficit with Indonesia. Its exports to us are $28 billion. $17.9/$28 = 64%, which Trump claims is the tariff rate Indonesia charges us. What extraordinary nonsense this is," Surowiecki, the ‘Wisdom of Crowds’ author, wrote.

He further pointed out that the administration is ignoring the US surplus in services trade and only factoring in goods when calculating the supposed tariff rates imposed by foreign nations. This, he argued, leads to completely inaccurate claims—such as South Korea charging a 50% tariff on US exports, or the European Union imposing a 39% tariff, neither of which is true.

Adding to the controversy, Surowiecki highlighted that Indonesia’s coffee tariffs were being used as justification for a 32% tariff on Indonesian coffee imports to the US—even though the US does not export coffee to Indonesia in the first place. "He literally does not understand the concept of comparative advantage," tweeted Surowiecki, a former financial columnist for The New Yorker, referring to President Donald Trump.

White House pushback

Meanwhile, Deputy White House Press Secretary Kush Desai fired back, claiming that Surowiecki was incorrect and that the administration had "literally" calculated tariff rates by measuring every country’s actual tariffs and trade barriers. 
"No we literally calculated tariff and non tariff barriers," he tweeted as he shared a screenshot of the formula used—one that Surowiecki argues backs up his claim.

"When you back out the Greek symbols, what is that formula? Trade deficit/imports—exactly what I said it was," Surowiecki responded.

According to Surowiecki, this flawed methodology explains why the tariff rates Trump is imposing on Latin American countries are lower—since the US has smaller trade deficits with them—while the rates imposed on Asian countries are significantly higher due to larger trade deficits.

"This is just a function of the formula they used," he tweeted.