- Many Nations Will Likely Plunge Into Recession, Fitch Rating Warns
A global trade war is looming as United States President Donald Trump has announced that exports from Nigeria to the US will attract a 14% tariff compared to the 27% that the US government claims it receives from Nigeria.
This is even as the US President slammed a baseline 10% tariff on all U.S. imports, alongside sharper, country-specific reciprocal tariffs aimed at nations that impose steeper duties on American goods
According to data from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS). Nigeria’s trade with the United States hit a combined N31.1 trillion between 2015 and 2024 while total imports within this period were N16.4 trillion or 8.7% of Nigeria’s global imports.
The announcement, made during a Rose Garden event tagged “Liberation Day,” marks a dramatic shift from decades of free-trade orthodoxy that has underpinned the global economy since World War II.
Trump declared the start of what he called a new era of “fair trade,” promising to “supercharge America’s industrial base” and force open foreign markets long accused of shutting out U.S. goods.
“This is one of the most important days in American history,” Trump said. “We will supercharge our domestic industrial base; we will pry open foreign markets and break down foreign trade barriers.”
The new tariffs, which take immediate effect, apply to more than 50 countries. They include major trade partners like China, the European Union, India, and Japan, as well as developing economies in Asia, Africa, and Latin America.
Meanwhile, Beijing will take countermeasures against Trump’s announced steep tariffs on Chinese imports, a Commerce Ministry spokesperson said Thursday.
Trump unveiled 54% tariffs on all Chinese imports into the United States Wednesday as part of his sweeping “Liberation Day” reset of American trade global policy.
“China has noted that on April 2, Eastern Time, the United States announced that it would impose ‘reciprocal tariffs’ on all trading partners. China firmly opposes this and will resolutely take countermeasures to safeguard its own rights and interests,” the spokesperson said.
The spokesperson said the tariffs disregard “the balance of interests achieved in multilateral trade negotiations over the years and the fact that the United States has long benefited greatly from international trade.”
The spokesperson repeated China’s view that “there are no winners in a trade war” and said the US move “is a typical unilateral bullying practice.”
“China urges the United States to immediately cancel its unilateral tariff measures and properly resolve differences with its trading partners through equal dialogue,” the spokesperson said.
In a related development, President Trump’s massive new tariffs would send the US tariff rate dramatically higher to levels unseen since around 1910, according to Fitch Ratings.
Trump’s very aggressive tariff moves are set to lift the US tariff rate from just 2.5% last year to 22%, according to Fitch.
That surpasses the roughly 20% tariff rate the United States charged following the infamous Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act of 1930, which set off a global trade war that economists say worsened the Great Depression.
“This is a game changer, not only for the US economy but for the global economy,” Olu Sonola, head of US economic research at Fitch Ratings, wrote in a statement today.
Sonola said “many” nations will likely plunge into recession.
“You can throw most forecasts out the door, if this tariff rate stays on for an extended period of time,” the Fitch economist said.
