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!
