What If US Imposed 100% Tariffs

Watching the news is kind of like watching a  horror movie sometimes - especially when it comes to economics. First, you hear the USA is applying  10% tariffs. Suddenly Starbucks raises the price of coffee.

Then 20%. Your local seafood restaurant  is all out of shrimp. In your darkest nightmares, it could go as high as even 40 or 50% tariffs. 

You can’t even order Dos Equis at a bar. But just because we think it’s  fun to spike your blood pressure, let’s get a little crazy - What if the  US imposed 100% tariffs on the rest of the world? Would it usher in a new era of  American independence and economic prosperity, or would it send us all more in the  direction of The Hunger Games and The Purge?

On today’s episode of The Infographics Show,  we’ll explore the America that 100 percent global tariffs would create - and how that would  affect you at home, at the grocery store, and in your wallet. Better watch closely,  and hope our predictions don’t come true. Before you start firing off comments about  fear-mongering… just know, this isn’t America’s first rodeo when it comes to unleashing the  economic nuclear option of 100 percent tariffs.

In 1987, the US pushed the big red button for  the first time against the Japanese auto market. A 100 percent tariff was put on $300 million  of Japanese imports, with a particular focus on cars. This was a classic example of a  retaliatory tariff - we’ll get into that later - after the US wasn’t happy with Japan’s  conduct in a 1986 Semiconductor Trade Agreement.

It happened again in 1993, not long after the  EU formed. The EU put a tariff on bananas from Latin America to give banana businesses in  Africa and the Caribbean a chance. This wasn’t a popular decision in the US, because  most of the banana companies in Latin America were owned by American companies-  thanks to some shady tactics from the CIA.

The US claimed that the EU tariffs  were against free market principles and taking their grievances to the World Trade  Organization. But just to emphasize the point, the US threw in another retaliatory  tariff of 100 percent against a huge number of EU products, from  French brie to Scottish cashmere. In May 2024, as part of a larger battery  of tariffs, the US levied another one of those dreaded 100 percent tariffs  against Chinese-manufactured electric vehicles.

The hope was it would bolster  the US’ own electric vehicle production. Then, in early December of that same  year- right after the U. S.

elections- the incoming administration didn’t waste any time. It  threatened 100 percent tariffs against the members of the BRICS nations - Brazil, Russia, India,  China, South Africa, Iran, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, and Ethiopia - if they tried to  move the global currency away from the dollar. These are all isolated examples of 100  percent tariffs being used by the US, and they give us a place to start  with exploring today’s scenario.

But you might need a little refresher.  Most people won’t actually stop to explain what tariffs even are, or the  fact that there are two different types of them. This all really matters for  you to understand what happens next.

Tariffs are added costs that the  government imposes on imports- goods brought in from other countries. These  costs aren’t paid by the other country, that’s a common misconception. They’re actually  paid by the people or companies in the US that are arranging the imports.

If Target is  importing tomatoes from farmers in Mexico, and there are tariffs on Mexican goods, it’ll be  Target that’s paying extra. Still with us? Good.

The really important thing to know, especially  when it comes to the percentages we’re throwing around here, is that there are two types  of tariffs- Specific or fixed tariffs and ad valorem tariffs. Specific tariffs are  a flat tax put on an import which would be consistent regardless of the amount you’re  bringing in. Take those tomatoes from earlier, the tariff might be, theoretically,  $1000 per shipment of tomatoes.

But much more important are the ad valorem  tariffs - that’s latin for “According to value. ” These charges are calculated as  a percentage of the product’s value. A ten percent tax means every product’s value  would be divided by ten, and the result is added on top of the cost.

Ad valorem tariffs  can be applied to specific products - like cars or beer or agricultural products - or  as a blanket tariff to all products coming in from an entire country. Under ad valorem  tariffs, the more products you import, or the more expensive they are, the more you’ll end  up paying to bring them into the country. And under the dreaded 100% tariff, anyone  importing goods would effectively literally be paying double for the goods they import.

And  that’s a pretty big incentive against doing it. The most obvious thing that tariffs into the US  will affect is imported goods- whether they end up in your fridge, your cabinets, your computers,  or in your garages. And seeing as food is the most essential product of all, let’s start there. 

Ready to take a trip down to the grocery store? Nearly a fifth of all food consumed in the U. S. 

comes from abroad- and that number is climbing. In the first 11 months of 2022, Americans  spent almost 20% more on imported food than the year before, racking up a total  of $182 billion. Between 2007 and 2021, the share of imported produce surged  from 50% to 60% for fruits and from 20% to 38% for vegetables - excluding  potatoes, sweet potatoes and mushrooms.

Under complete, global 100% tariffs, you’re  looking at two possible scenarios. Either grocery stores will pass the doubling costs  onto you, making certain products prohibitively expensive. Or, they’ll drastically  reduce imports or stop them entirely, meaning that certain goods will disappear  from the shelves for vast portions of the year- just like the British experienced after  the post-BREXIT supply chain disruptions.

And the UK is a nation with only 68 million  people. Could an economically isolationist country with 346 million mouths to feed  provide the supply to meet the demand? So, let’s get practical to find out.

Which  products will you be feeling the squeeze on? Maybe you like to start the  morning with the delicious and healthy source of around 80% of hack  jokes about millennials- Avocado toast! There’s a lot to love about avocados. 

They’re healthy, tasty, and versatile, giving you everything from the aforementioned  avo toast to the delicious guacamole in your favorite burrito. There’s a good chance that some  of you are getting hungry just listening to this. It’s also something that we rely heavily on our  neighbors to the South to satisfy our Joneses for.

The US buys up 86 percent of the avocados  that Mexico exports. While you can grow avocados in some parts of the US, like California,  it’s not nearly as easy as it is down South. The US imports from $2.

1 to $3. 6 billion  of avocados every year, 16. 7% of America’s total imported fruits- which both fills a  lot of toast slices and burrito wraps and is the largest proportion of imported fruit in the  country.

But would a tariff hike mean this creamy, green gold vanishes from American shelves forever?  Thankfully, no- but it would hit both price and availability hard. California avocados would  be scarcer than their Mexican equivalents, leading to increased demand and, by  the laws of trade, increased price.

You’d also need to go without your delicious  avocado fix being satisfied during the winter months. In the US, avocado season is from February  to September, and a ripe avocado will spoil in generally less than a week. Under 100% import  tariffs, you’d have to tolerate dry burritos and plain toast from October till’ the end of January  every year.

In Mexico, avocado season is all year round, so your craving can forever be satisfied  by the ones that Mexico exports up North. And avocados are just a small slice of the  bigger picture when it comes to fruit and vegetable imports. The globalization  of trade- the very system the U.

S. would be pulling back from with 100%  tariffs- is the reason you can enjoy fresh produce year-round instead of being  limited to the short U. S.

growing season. But avocados are really the tip of the iceberg  for how America’s access to fruit would suddenly become extremely limited- especially during  the winter months. According to some sources, America imports $2.

6 billion of bananas each  year, mostly from South America. Grapes come up just behind at $2. 4 billion, which, it  goes without saying, will also affect wine production for all of our aspiring sommeliers out  there.

The same goes for cranberries, bilberries, raspberries, blackberries, and mulberries, each of  which is imported at around $1. 9 billion annually. We’re cumulatively also looking at several  billion more from lemons, limes, pineapples, mango, mandarins, tangerines, melons, frozen  strawberries, and tangerines.

Without all these, it goes without saying that your  kitchen fruit bowl is looking a lot less stocked. You’re probably going  to be running low on a whole host of essential vitamins - especially in the  winter months when you need them most. But hey, at least the US doesn’t rely a great deal on foreign imports for their  vegetables, too, right?

Right! ? Okay, you probably already figured out where that  was going.

Vegetables are another thing that the US desperately needs supplies from both  Canada and Mexico to meet the national demand. And again, the list is staggering.  All of the following are vegetables that America imports at least $100 million dollars  worth of, with some of the higher levels, like tomatoes and bell peppers, being  well over a billion.

From Canada, the US imports hundreds of millions in mushrooms  and potatoes. From Mexico, there’s tomatoes, bell peppers, cucumbers, cauliflower, broccoli,  asparagus, onions, lettuce, and spinach. One group that might actually celebrate  the 100% tariff plan are six-year-olds who refuse to eat their veggies- at least until  vitamin deficiencies and constipation catch up with them.

Of course, you might wonder-  could reducing reliance on imported fruits and vegetables simply push the U. S.  to grow more domestically?

In theory, maybe. But just like with the humble  avocado, many of these crops aren’t even practical to grow in American climates,  and even fewer can be produced year-round. And this would all be bad enough if the US was  just levying tariffs against Mexico, Canada, and China - which accounted for around  45 percent of the United States’ food imports in 2022.

But economically shutting out  imports from the entire world would be utterly devastating. Already, 28 percent of American  adults say they have difficulty buying food, and 13. 5 percent of households claim  to have difficulty getting access to food.

And with a food price hike and product  shortages, this would only get much worse. We’re sorry to tell you it’s also much  bigger than just fruits and vegetables. All agricultural imports have been on the rise in  the US, with the growth of agricultural imports slowly outpacing the growth of agricultural  exports- despite the latter historically being larger than the former.

The USDA Economic  Research Service has forecasted that in 2025, the US will be operating on a $42 billion  agricultural trade deficit - don’t worry, we’ll explain more about deficits later. But  suffice to say, the projected agricultural trade deficit for this year is the largest  for the US in the last three decades. And the bigger the deficit, the more  infrastructure that’ll collapse in light of a sudden 100 percent universal tariff.

While fruit, vegetables, and nuts imports  are pretty dire, if you’re a seafood fan, well, it’s gonna get even worse  for you. In the last few years, seventy to eighty-five percent of seafood  consumed in the US came from international sources. In 2020, the US had a $17  billion trade deficit when it comes to seafood.

Almost two billion of that was  frozen shellfish from countries like India, so scaring off those imports would lead to a  sudden seafood shortage in the states. We can expect riots in Boston after that if people can’t  get their hands on a lobster roll all year round. Speaking of that lobster roll… you won’t be  happy to hear that the US annually imports more than ten billion dollars of breads  and pastries - mostly from Canada.

So the roll your imaginary lobster is nestled  in, is actually in trouble, too. Fresh beef supplies are also supplemented by Canada,  with frozen beef supplemented by Australia. If all this economic doomsaying is making you  thirsty, you might find yourself wondering, what about beverages?

If you’re sober  and just prefer water or a soda, you’ll be fine. But if you like your drinks  a little stronger, it might unnerve you to know that the US imports around six billion  dollars of beer. That’s in addition to the five billion dollars of liquor and cordial,  and over two billion dollars of flavored water- all mostly from Mexico.

Billions of  dollars in wine, sparkling and otherwise, as well as brandy, and vodka come largely  from European nations like France. And what about America’s favorite drink of all, coffee? The only places in the US where it can be  commercially cultivated are California, Hawaii, and Puerto Rico.

To keep up with the demands of a  coffee-addicted populace, the US imported almost 1. 5 billion dollars of coffee in 2023 alone,  mostly from Brazil. We don’t know about you, but the idea of even a week of a coffee-free US  is kind of terrifying.

How would people survive! ? And then there’s fuel costs.

A lot of  anxiety in the world right now comes from the prices you have to face at the gas  pump, but in a 100 percent tariff world, it gets so much worse. In 2023, the United States  imported 8. 5 million barrels of petroleum.

And no, we don’t mean annually. That’s how much was  imported per day that year. Petroleum is one of the pleasant things that the US has a  trade surplus of, but regular consumers and larger infrastructure would be utterly  kneecapped by the loss of those imports.

What about other commodities and industrial goods?  The US heavily relies on imports here too. As of 2019, we were looking at $54.

6 billion in organic  chemicals and $60. 8 billion in gems and precious metals. There was also $61.

9 billion in plastics,  $72. 1 billion in furniture, lighting, and signs, $93. 4 billion in medical equipment and supplies  and $116.

3 billion in pharmaceuticals. That’s before we mention the $306. 7 billion in vehicles  and automobiles, $367.

1 billion in electrical machinery, and $386. 4 billion in overall  machinery, including computers and hardware. All of this incorporated together, the US has  a $600 billion trade deficit.

Now just imagine the hole it’d leave for all of those carefully  balanced trade relationships to collapse under the sheer weight of a sudden 100 percent tariff.  It’s a little concerning, to say the least. Okay, let’s take a little break from  the chaotic, post-ultra-tariffs America that this direction would create.

Don’t  worry, we’ll be going back there soon. Let’s explore why exactly a government like  the US applies tariffs in the first place. One of the big reasons is, of course,  retaliation.

If you don’t want to go as far as sanctioning a country, whether they’re  an ally or an enemy, putting tariffs on their goods is one way to punish another nation.  That’s exactly what we saw with the tariffs on Japanese imports in the late 80s and the  tariffs on EU imports in the early 90s. But this is a double edged sword.

There’s no  certainty that the people on the receiving end of the tariffs won’t levy tariffs back, which  can potentially start an escalating trade war. And we’ll get into how exactly a trade  war would affect the ultimate economically isolationist America later, but suffice to say,  it would not be pretty. Stay tuned for that.

Of course, another good reason to  institute tariffs - in theory - is to supplement tax revenue. Before federal  income tax was introduced in 1913, revenue from tariffs actually made up as high  as around 95 percent of tax income for the US government. While the share of revenue the U.

S.  collects from tariffs has declined over the years, a cash-strapped country might see higher  tariffs as a way to shrink its trade deficit. And in case you’re wondering, trade  deficits are when you import more from a country than you export to them. 

In some cases, running a trade deficit can give the other country economic  leverage over you- which isn’t ideal. But the biggest reason you’ll generally see  tariffs implemented is to protect US industry and manufacturing. That was the case for the 2024  100 percent tariff on Chinese electric vehicles.

The aim was to prevent those imports  from undercutting electric vehicle manufacturing domestically. It’s a truth  universally acknowledged that large, publicly traded companies have a fiduciary  duty to keep their profits high. A key part of that endless quest is keeping costs- often by  sourcing cheaper materials and labor from abroad.

One way for a government to gently  convince them otherwise is to alter their economic incentives. If a clothing or  phone company is manufacturing its products with cheap - and often, let’s be real,  ethically questionable - foreign labour, adding tariffs on these makes this choice  far more costly. In an ideal world, this means that the companies will return to the  now comparatively reasonable domestic sources to reduce their overheads.

It’s kind of like  using corporate greed for good for once. But the best laid plans often go awry. And as  you’re soon going to find out, tariffs made with good intentions, to protect American industry,  can sometimes end up doing just the opposite.

As we mentioned earlier, one of the US’ major  reasons for levying tariffs is retaliation, applying economic leverage to get the  outcomes they want out of geopolitical spats. But this goes both ways. When  the US threatened Canada, Mexico, and China with high tariffs in early February,  2025, the US was met with immediate reprisals.

Canada hit back with 25% tariffs on a  range of U. S. goods- everything from makeup to drinks- dealing a blow worth an  estimated $20 billion to American exports.

Unsurprisingly, these tariffs were soon put  on pause. But let’s be real, tit-for-tat trade wars wouldn’t just stop there. If the U.

S. went  all-in with a universal 100% tariff, escalation would be inevitable. And if history- both  economic and military- has taught us anything, it’s that the more battles you fight at once,  the slimmer your chances of securing a win.

If the U. S. imposed a universal 100% tariff, it  would instantly turn itself into a hermit nation.

Its import network would collapse overnight-  but that’s only half the story. Key U. S.

exports would face an onslaught of retaliatory  tariffs, wiping them out in a trade war spiral. As of 2023, the US was exporting $323 billion in  mineral fuels, oil, and distillation products. The second highest export was machinery, nuclear  reactors, and boilers, at $233 billion per year.

Electrical and electronic equipment accounts  for just over $200 billion, and a combination of vehicles and air and spacecraft combined  account for a little less than $300 billion. These are all industries where the US currently  excels, but it isn’t unique by any means. Saudi Arabia, Russia, and Canada export more  oil.

China is a larger exporter of electronics, and also the largest exporter of cars. While the  U. S.

is the world’s top exporter of aircraft, buyers wouldn’t be left stranded. France,  Germany, the U. K.

, and even Canada could step in to fill the gap. And that’s just the  start- medical equipment, pharmaceuticals, plastics, organic chemicals, food- one by one,  America’s key exports would find new suppliers. So why would the United States drive  its most important trade partners away, potentially to its own horrific detriment?

All we can hope is that our  strange little prediction of a 100 percent universal  tariff never becomes reality… Would a universal 100% tariff  make America stronger or send the economy into a tailspin? Would  you be willing to pay higher prices for American-made goods? Drp  your thoughts in the comments!