Thread by @onlydjole

🇺🇸‼️THIS IS TRUMP'S SECRET FORMULA FOR TARIFFS (With the example of SERBIA of as much as 37%), the answer is incredibly banal!‼️

Trump's new tariffs appear to have been determined based on a Google search of the US trade deficit with Serbia.

American President Donald Trump last night cut tariffs to countries around the world, and among the most affected was Serbia with 37 percent. During the cut, he referred to the alleged 74 percent of tariffs (74 divided by 2 equals 37) that Serbia has on American goods, which puzzled all Serbian analysts and economists who had never heard of such and such Serbian tariffs. How did Trump even get to the figure of 74 percent?! 👇

After a little research, it seems that everything is much more banal and bizarre than everyone thought, and that Trump's people used - Google search! And the first results.

Unfortunately, that seems to be the case! This is the formula by which the Trump administration has calculated reciprocal tariffs. There are only three steps.

If you type "US Serbia trade deficit" into Google, the following comes up at the top of the search results:

"Overview In January 2025, the United States exported $16.9M and imported $66.5M from Serbia, resulting in a negative trade balance of $49.7M." 👇

The results show that in January of this year, the USA exported to Serbia goods worth 16.9 million dollars, and imported goods worth 66.5 million dollars, which created an American trade deficit with Serbia of 49.7 million dollars.

And this seems to be where we get to Trump's bizarre formula for cutting tariffs on Serbia: if we divide the US deficit by Serbian exports to the US and round that figure, we get the exact figure of alleged Serbian tariffs of 74 percent from Trump's table from last night:

49.7 divided by 66.5 multiplied by 100 percent = 74 percent

and 74 divided by 2 = 37

And that is the exact amount of the new tariffs imposed on Serbia by Trump. 👇

We can check this on the examples of some other countries that are claimed in Trump's tables to have bizarrely high tariffs for American goods.

For example, type "US Madagascar trade deficit" into Google search. Click on the first search result. It says:

"U.S. exports to Madagascar totaled $53.4 million (...) while imports from Madagascar rose by 1.7% to $733.2 million".

This means that the American deficit towards Madagascar is about 679.8 million dollars. If we apply the above formula to these figures:

679.8 divided by 733.2 = 93

just as in the American table of Madagascar's supposed tariffs against America. And if we divide 93 by 2 we get roughly 47, which is the new rate of tariffs that Trump has slapped on hapless Madagascar as of last night. 👇

Some users of social network X also pointed out this way of cutting tariffs for other countries around the world:

If this calculation is correct, it cost Serbia dearly that, according to the first results of a Google search, it has an excellent trade surplus with the USA in January 2025. The United States exported goods worth $16.9 million and imported goods from Serbia worth $66.5 million, resulting in a negative US trade balance of $49.7 million.

In the end, was Serbia punished because it did excellent trade with America in one month, or does Trump's calculation still have a deeper basis? Time ahead will tell.

By the way, Serbia mostly exports IT services to the USA, which make up the largest part of service exports worth 1.7 billion euros in 2024. There is also dedicated (military) industry, steel and FIAT cars - from Kragujevac.