Following the inauguration of the new Trump administration on January 20, 2025, a return to the most traditional forms of protectionism was expected. However, few observers anticipated that this would be implemented with such force, brutality and, above all, such a deluge of announcements – sometimes spectacular, often contradictory. The climax was reached on April 2, 2025, “Liberation Day”, when President Donald Trump announced, in front of the White House, the implementation of “reciprocal tariffs”, consisting notably of tariff hikes ranging from 11 to 50 percentage points (pp), targeting 57 trading partners he accused of having “plundered, ransacked, raped and looted” the United States for decades. A week later, on April 9 – the day the tariffs were scheduled to take effect – the US president reversed his decision and announced a 90-day “pause” in their implementation, introducing a universal surcharge of “only” 10 pp instead.