Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and CEO Tesla President Elon Musk will be present at the Cabinet meeting held at the White House in Washington, DC on March 24, 2025.
Carlos Barrier | Reuters
President Donald Trump said Monday he would soon announce tariffs on automobiles, drugs and other industries, signaling his plans to put more drastic duties on top of his upcoming “mutual tariffs.”
“We’ll be unveiling the car soon,” Trump said at the cabinet meeting. “You know, we have already launched steel.
“We’re going to announce the medicine at some point,” he said. “Because you need to have medicines.”
“So we’re going to announce some of these things in the very near future, not the long future,” Trump said.
Trump added the timber and semiconductor industry to his list at another White House event later Monday, saying tariffs in these two sectors “down the road.”
But even if he stacks up in the new sector for potential tariffs, Trump said in the same event that he “may take a break from many countries” about mutual tariffs scheduled to take effect on April 2.
When asked to clarify whether the sector’s tariffs would also start that day, Trump initially said, “Yeah, that’s going to be all.”
He then said, “But not all the tariffs that day are included.”
He also hinted that automobile tariffs could be announced before mutual tariffs begin.
“We’ll announce that when it comes probably a few days, and maybe April 2, it’s going to be mutual tariffs,” he said.
Wall Street Journal It has been reported The White House is likely to rule out industry-specific tariffs from the April 2 batch, despite Trump’s proposal a week ago that both types of tariffs would be launched. Same day.
The president’s latest comments came hours after he vowed to slap 25% tariffs in all countries buying oil and gas from Venezuela.
“We have been fooled by all the countries in the world,” Trump told the cabinet meeting.
“We did something in Venezuela, and it’s been a long time,” he said. “And we’ll be unveiling the car soon.”
A White House official told CNBC that tariffs on certain sectors “may be incurred or not.”
“As long as Sectral is addressed with each other, no final decision has been made,” said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
A massive stock index surged Monday following reports that Trump may be easing his tariff plans.
Officials did not immediately respond to CNBC’s request for additional comments following Trump’s remarks at the Cabinet meeting.
