Israel eliminated all tariffs on American imports, and it still got hit with a 17 percent tariff this week. Tariffs on Iran? Only 10 percent.
A few hours before President Donald Trump slapped huge new tariffs on nearly all imports to the United States, Israel preemptively dropped all its tariffs on American goods.
That’s what some of Trump’s defenders say is the goal of this whole madcap scheme: to get foreign countries to lower their barriers to American exports.
Mission accomplished, right?
Apparently not. In Wednesday’s announcement, Trump imposed new 17 percent tariffs on all imports from Israel.
Amusingly, that’s a higher tariff rate than the president put on Iran—Israel’s sworn enemy and America’s biggest geopolitical foe in the Middle East. The Islamic Republic got hit with a 10 percent tariff.
The comparison is somewhat silly since the boatload of sanctions on Iran already makes it difficult for Americans to trade with Iranians regardless of any tariffs.
