EVEN MORE TARIFFS that will target European countries, including Ireland, are expected to come into effect next week. 

Since his return to the White House in January, US President Donald Trump has announced a barrage of tariffs on various goods that the US imports from other countries.

The most recent was the announcement last night of new tariffs on cars and car parts coming from outside the US.

It can be tricky to keep track of which industries are affected, which tariffs are coming in when, and which ones are specific plans as opposed to threats.

Ireland is among the EU member states that will be affected by the tariffs, particularly the new “reciprocal tariffs” due to take effect on 2 April.

Here’s a breakdown of what’s important to know about the tariffs.

Taoiseach Micheál Martin with Trump during his visit to the White House on his 2025 St Patrick's Day trip Alamy Stock Photo Alamy Stock Photo

Tariffs – essentially taxes placed on imported goods – are levied on those purchasing the items and are designed to encourage companies within a country to source their materials domestically as opposed to from abroad.

Trump is hoping this will encourage the US’s domestic industry but most economists agree that it is more likely to push up inflation and hamper economic growth.

On 2 April, Trump intends to impose tariffs on countries that he sees as having the worst trade balances with the US. He’s been calling them “reciprocal” tariffs to suggest that they’re a means to “match” the cost of the US doing business with those countries.

He’s dubbed the targets of these tariffs the “dirty 15″ – a list of 14 countries plus the entire EU.

The exact rate of these tariffs has not yet been announced. Politico has reported that EU diplomats believe they could be around 20% to 25%.

The reciprocal tariffs would be in addition to other tariffs that are being waged against specific sectors.

Another tariff already affecting EU countries is a 25% tariff on steel and aluminium that came into effect on 12 March.

Additionally, the tariff rates announced today are 25% on automobiles from 2 April and 25% on automobile parts from 2 May.

Trump has also threatened to impose 200% tariffs on alcohol from the EU. That came in response to the EU announcing retaliatory tariffs on the US, which it has since delayed to mid-April – so we’ll have to wait and see whether the tariffs on alcohol come to fruition.

We also know that Trump wants to target Ireland’s pharmaceutical industry. Trump said last night that tariffs would “bring pharmaceuticals back” to the US and that Ireland was “very smart”.

Minister for Finance Paschal Donohoe said last week that the tariffs could result in the loss of up to 80,000 jobs in Ireland.

Speaking on RTÉ’s This Week Programme, he said that there could be on impact on Ireland’s GDP of between 2% and 4%.

Asked whether there could be an economic recession in Ireland because of the tariffs, Donohoe said “it depends on many different variables”, such as whether the tariffs are temporary and how the rest of the world responds.

‘Slowing of growth’

“The EU tariffs are predominantly focused on a number of key areas that the Trump administration views as having an imbalance between the trading partners,” said Professor of Political Economy at Trinity College Sharyn O’Halloran.

Speaking to The Journal, O’Halloran outlined that Trump is “looking for a way to have what his administration perceives as a levelling of the playing field”.

“This is a shift in their dialogue in the sense that they’ve shifted from the Mexico and Canada case, when they were saying that these were national security issues — the immigrants coming from Mexico and supposedly the illicit drugs coming from Canada — and they’re now using this list of countries that have trade imbalances,” she said.

Professor O’Halloran said that the tariffs could potentially “have large impacts on the Irish economy in the sense that there may be a relocation of production in pharmaceuticals or in the tech industries from Ireland back to the US”.

“But I think most likely it would be a slowing of the growth of the Irish economy and the number of good high-paying jobs that are coming into Ireland, which will limit at least the interim potential of growth,” she said.