Washington: U.S. President Donald Trump announced on Friday that he plans to unveil "reciprocal" tariffs in the coming week, aiming to adjust U.S. import tariffs to align with the rates imposed by other countries on U.S. exports. Trump made this declaration during a summit at the White House with Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba. The specific countries that might face these new U.S. tariffs have not yet been disclosed.

According to Yonhap News Agency, Trump has been leveraging tariffs as a strategy to address America's trade deficits and to fulfill other policy objectives, including curbing illegal migration and drug inflow, like fentanyl, into the United States. "I will be announcing that next week ... reciprocal trade so that we are treated evenly with other countries," Trump stated, emphasizing that the new tariffs "affect everybody" and asserting, "We don't want any more or any less."

In his remarks, Trump also hinted that an auto tariff remains a possibility. "It's a very big deal ... We have cases where we don't supply autos and other countries do," he explained, expressing the need to "stabilize it and equalize it."

The announcement follows Trump's decision to impose an additional 10 percent tariff on all Chinese imports starting Tuesday. Meanwhile, he has agreed to a temporary pause on tariffs for Canada and Mexico, contingent on their promise to enhance efforts to prevent drug trafficking across their borders with the United States.

Before the meeting with Prime Minister Ishiba, a senior official from the Trump administration highlighted that Trump places significant emphasis on trade deficits, viewing them as a measure of economic fairness and the strength of the relationship with U.S. trading partners.