U.S. President Donald Trump has announced a 10 percent baseline tariff on imports from all countries and higher rates on countries with trade surpluses with the U.S., including Nigeria.
The new tariffs, coming on what Trump has named “Liberation Day,” are expected to boost U.S. manufacturing and punish other countries for what he says are years of unfair trade practices.
In 2022, Nigeria was the second-largest U.S. export destination in Sub-Saharan Africa. According to data from the Observatory of Economic Complexity (OEC), Nigeria exported $6.29 billion worth of goods to the U.S. in 2023, while importing $3 billion, leaving the U.S. with a trade deficit of $3.29 billion.
The move threatens Nigeria’s exports to the U.S., particularly petroleum goods, its major export product. Nigeria’s main exports to the U.S. included crude petroleum ($4.73 billion), petroleum gas, and nitrogenous fertilizers, while the U.S. mainly exported cars, refined petroleum, and wheat to Nigeria.
The tariffs also come just as the U.S. began importing jet fuel from Nigeria’s Dangote Refinery, with six vessels carrying 1.7 million barrels arriving this month.
“Our country has been looted, pillaged, raped, plundered” by other nations, Trump said on Wednesday. “Taxpayers have been ripped off for more than 50 years,” Trump said in remarks at the White House. “But it is not going to happen anymore.”
The president has declared a national economic emergency to launch the tariffs, expected to produce hundreds of billions in annual revenues.
In addition to the baseline tariffs, Trump said the United States would charge a 34 percent tax on imports from China, a 20 percent tax on imports from the European Union, 25 percent on South Korea, 24 percent on Japan, and 32 percent on Taiwan.
