- President Donald Trump’s tariffs could reach an effective rate as high as 30%, up from 25% under his recently announced plans, according to analysts at UBS. A rate that steep would mark the highest level in more than 150 years. But after a cycle of retaliation and escalation, UBS see tariffs coming back down later this year.
President Donald Trump’s “Liberation Day” tariffs are already sending rates to the steepest levels in a century, but they could go even higher.
According to a note from UBS analysts on Friday, the latest salvo of import taxes will send the effective rate to 25%, up from 2.5% before the 2024 election. But it’s not likely to stop there.
“We believe that the EU and China are likely to retaliate, and that the ‘reciprocal’ approach to US tariffs means that retaliation by trading partners is likely to be met with even higher US tariffs,” they wrote.
In addition, some of the imports that weren’t targeted this past week may be subject to future investigations and could lose their exemptions, UBS said, noting the Trump administration has a “high degree of conviction” in the merits of restrictive trade policies.
On Wednesday, Trump added a 34% levy on China that will take the total rate to 54% and hit the European Union with a 20% duty. China has already retaliated with its own 34% tariff, and the EU said it plans to respond too.
UBS expects the effective US tariff rate will peak in the 25%-30% range. According to data from Fitch Ratings, a 25% effective tariff rate would already be the highest since 1909.
And if it reaches 30%, it would be the highest since 1872—when Civil War hero Ulysses S. Grant was president and the US economy was still in the Industrial Revolution.
But by the third quarter, UBS sees tariffs starting to head back down and expects the effective rate to end 2025 at 10%-15%.
“Various individual countries have suggested that they do not intend to retaliate and that deals with individual countries could begin to bring the overall effective tariff rate down,” analysts said.
In fact, Vietnam confirmed over the weekend that it offered to remove all tariffs on US imports, and Trump administration officials said Sunday that more than 50 countries have reached out to the White House for tariff talks.
Trump will also face more pressure to negotiate, UBS predicted, citing potential challenges to the legal basis for his tariffs and extensive business lobbying to water down policies or carve out exceptions.
And as midterm election season gets closer, political calculations may also soften Trump’s stance. Republican Sen. Ted Cruz warned of a political “bloodbath” in 2026 if tariffs cause a recession.
UBS sees US GDP expanding by less than 1% in 2025, including an intra-year recession that will see GDP decline 1% from peak to trough. Stocks will rebound, but analysts slashed their year-end S&P 500 target to 5,800 from 6,400.
“We believe some potentially acceptable ‘off-ramps’ that could enable all sides to declare victory could include some combination of higher European defense spending, measures in Asia to prevent dumping of excess supply into global markets, reductions in existing tariff or non-tariff barriers, or measures to increase inward investment into the US,” UBS said.