Trump takes steps to impose 'fair and reciprocal' tariffs on trade partners, including allies

President Donald Trump signed a memorandum Thursday calling for "fair and reciprocal" trade tariffs on all major U.S. trading partners, including longtime allies.

The memo calls on Howard Lutnick, Trump's nominee for commerce secretary, and Jamieson Greer, his global trade representative, to assess within 180 days in a country-by-country report whether "remedies" are necessary to ensure reciprocal trade relations. Russell Vought, Trump's nominee to head the powerful Office of Management and Budget, will likewise submit a report within that time period on the fiscal impact of instituting the measures.

“I’ve decided, for purposes of fairness, that I will charge a reciprocal tariff, meaning whatever countries charge the United States of America,” Trump said Thursday. “In almost all cases, they’re charging us vastly more than we charge them, but those days are over.”

Trump also said there would be additional import taxes on cars, semiconductors and pharmaceuticals “over and above” the reciprocal tariffs, though these would come later.

Markets responded favorably to the announcement as the order signaled a less firm timetable for the new measures than forecast. The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed up more than 350 points, while borrowing costs represented by the 10-year Treasury note fell.

In a call with reporters before the memo's signing, Peter Navarro, White House senior counselor for trade and manufacturing, said that major exporting nations of the world had created a "pernicious, trillion-dollar" trade deficit with the U.S. He singled out the European Union's value-added tax as a trade tactic that he said hurts U.S. exports — though some pro-free-market commentators have disputed that.

Drugs, vaccines and medical products like MRI machines would likely be most affected by new trade duties with Europe based on their import volumes.

Some experts say going country by country to institute new trade levies on a granular level would be a vast undertaking.

“Declaring reciprocal tariffs will not be easy,” Josh Teitelbaum, senior counsel of Akin, who helped craft the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal, told CNBC. “It would be a logistical nightmare to identify gaps in tariff rates across products in multiple counties. More research needs to be done in order to carry out something of that magnitude.”

To date, Trump has implemented only one set of the series of tariffs he has announced: an additional 10% levy on Chinese imports on top of existing duties. A 25% duty on steel and aluminum imports announced this week, as well as 25% duties on imports from Canada and Mexico that Trump suspended, would not go into effect until the first week of March.

Some investors and business groups have pushed back on Trump's tariff push, saying they are likely to raise prices for U.S. consumers, though there remains disagreement about their ultimate lasting effect on the U.S. economy.

Ford executives said recently that the automaker would be dramatically affected by levies on Canada and Mexico, and that more broadly they “would burrow a hole in the U.S. industry that we have never seen.”

A Feb. 3 report by the Brookings Institution estimated that tariffs could lead to as many as 177,000 job losses in the U.S.

On the other hand, JP Morgan CEO Jamie Dimon said that if the tariffs improve national security or result in concessions more favorable to the U.S., they would be worth the price.

“If it’s a little inflationary but it’s good for national security, so be it. I mean, get over it,” Dimon said at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, last month.

In remarks on Capitol Hill this week, Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell sidestepped the tariffs issue, even as many economists say their imposition could ultimately affect interest rates if they cause economic activity to slow or prices to increase.

"It’s not the Fed’s job to make or comment on tariff policy," Powell said. "That’s for elected people, and it’s not for us to comment."

This article was originally published on NBCNews.com