Washington has begun applying a 10% blanket import tariff but may raise it to 15%, with economists warning Portugal could see one of the larger effective increases.
Portugal could face one of the larger increases in effective US tariffs on its exports if Washington ultimately lifts its new blanket import duty to 15%, according to estimates cited by Jornal de Negócios — but uncertainty over the final rate has unsettled exporters.
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The United States began applying a 10% global import duty on 24 February after President Donald Trump said he wanted the tariff set at 15%. The shift followed a US Supreme Court ruling on Friday that struck down Trump’s earlier sweeping tariff plan.
Hours before the measure took effect, the US agency overseeing customs circulated a memo to importers stating that “all countries will be charged a 10% duty for a period of 150 days, unless specifically exempted”.
US federal government sources quoted by the American press said Trump still intends to impose a 15% tariff under Section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974, but no date has been given for a formal presidential order authorising the increase.
If the rate does rise to 15%, Jornal de Negócios reported that Portugal would be among the EU countries seeing the biggest jump in tariff costs, citing estimates by Belgian economist Eric Dor of France’s IÉSEG School of Management.
Exemptions could soften the blow of tariffs
Belgian economist Eric Dor told Euronews that the headline tariff rate can be misleading because the effective levy varies sharply by country, “depending on the composition of the products they export to the US”.
The legal text published by the US administration on Friday — setting out a single 10% duty — also lists exemptions for a range of goods, including pharmaceuticals and electronics.
Dor said countries that export a larger share of exempt products would face a lower average tariff burden than those selling mainly non-exempt goods. He added that products with high steel or aluminium content remain subject to a 50% rate.
That matters because the EU–US trade arrangement struck last July set a 15% base rate on most EU exports to the United States, while keeping 50% duties on steel and aluminium, alongside a separate set of exemptions.
Dor said that under that agreement, in December, “the average US tariff rate on imports from Portugal was just 8.54 per cent,” compared with “12.71 per cent on imports from Sweden”.
He added that the average rate was even lower for major exporters of exempt pharmaceutical products, including Ireland, Belgium and France.
On that basis, Dor argued that Portugal would have ranked among the EU countries with the lowest average tariff rates on exports to the United States under the July deal, partly because some Portuguese exports were exempt and because Portugal ships relatively few products hit by the 50% steel and aluminium duty.
The problem now, he warned, is that the exemption list attached to the new 10% global duty differs from the exemptions envisaged in the EU–US agreement, creating “great uncertainty” for European exporters.
“It is also unclear whether, for EU countries, the basic 15% tariff on non-exempt goods will be reduced to 10% or whether it will remain at 15 per cent,” Dor said.
If a single 15% tariff were applied across the board, Portugal would be the eighth EU country facing the biggest increase — around 6.5%, Dor said — though he stressed that outcome would depend on duties being applied to all goods, and noted that “the legal text released on Friday mentions many exempt goods”, which could soften the hit.
Would a 10 per cent tax have a different impact?
Dor said there would be no change in Portugal’s position if the tariff applied to EU countries stays at 10%.
“Mechanically, Portugal would still have the eighth biggest difference,” he told Euronews, but stressed that claims Portugal would be the EU’s eighth most affected country rest on “wrong or uncertain assumptions” because they do not account for exemptions.
Dor underlined that the legal document published on Friday contains “many exemptions”, and that these appear to differ significantly from those set out in last summer’s EU–US agreement.
“Clarification is therefore needed before the new average customs duties on imports [from] each EU country can be calculated,” he concluded.
