American president Donald tramp he informed 14 states about the new ones customs rates that will take effect on August 1. Among them is Serbia, which is introducing customs duties of 35 percent instead of the announced 37.
Trump in early April shook the world with the news that he was introducing reciprocal tariffs on imported goods to the United States, raising concerns about a new tariff war.
At that time, he announced a basic customs rate of 10 percent for most countries and additional customs duties that range up to 50 percent.
Among them was Serbia, which has tariffs of 74 percent on imported goods from the United States.
The tariffs were supposed to take effect on July 9, but were delayed, so Trump has now announced that they will take effect on August 1, 2025.
A reduction of two percent for Serbia
In a letter to Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić, Trump stated that the United States will charge a 35 percent tariff on Serbian products.
This procedure, as announced by Trump on the Thruth Social network, will begin on August 1, 2025.
"Our relationship has been far from reciprocal... Beginning August 1, 2025, we will charge Serbia a tariff of only 35 percent on all Serbian products sent to the United States, separate from any sectoral tariffs. Goods transported to avoid a higher tariff will be subject to that higher tariff. Please understand that the 35 percent number is far less than what is needed to eliminate the difference in the trade deficit we have with your country," Trump stated, among other things, in a letter to Vučić.
As he added, there will be no customs duties if Serbia or companies from Serbia decide to build or produce in the United States.
If Serbia decides to raise its own tariffs, that number will be added to the 35 percent charged by the US.
Bad move for the world economy
How is it previously for "Vreme" explained economist Ljubomir Madžar, the introduction of tariffs is a bad measure that will affect the efficiency of the world economy as a whole.
"It is a situation in which everyone loses for a longer period of time, and in the short term it can happen that someone catches something, but later it is paid dearly in terms of efficiency losses, because customs duties are a great enemy of economic efficiency," said Magjar.
The Trump administration's decision was inspired, among other things, by the fact that in other parts of the world production is much cheaper than in America, "because American wages are very high and of course it pays to move the company to China where there is still a lot of cheap, good and disciplined labor."
"As far as the effects on Serbia are concerned, the first and most certain thing that can be said is that those effects will not be favorable. On the other hand, we do not have any excessively developed economic ties with America. It is not even among the top five foreign trade partners according to the volume of foreign trade exchange. Some direct effect cannot be large, but the indirect effects will be quite large because the whole world will have a harder time doing business and become less efficient than it would be if it were not for those crazy Trump tariffs," explained Magjar.
Commenting on the high customs duties that Serbia has on the goods it imports from the USA, Magjar said that it is accepted in world circles that underdeveloped countries can introduce higher customs duties.
"Firstly, they do not participate much in world trade flows, so this does not have much of an impact on the whole, and secondly, it is good for them because they are very inefficient. With low efficiency, they cannot break into the world market, and this tolerance of an asymmetric system of taxation, i.e. customs clearance, slightly eases the position of underdeveloped countries and opens the door to the world market. It is a way to facilitate access to the world market for underdeveloped countries," explained Magjar.
Who in Serbia will feel the consequences the most?
As "Forbes Serbia" previously wrote, due to the introduced tariffs, exports of the automotive industry (primarily automotive tires) and specialized industry (mainly ammunition) could suffer. Although not such a large export product, food products could also be affected by tariffs.
IT services are also exported to the USA on a larger scale from Serbia, but they should not be threatened by customs duties.
On the other hand, although some important export products, such as metals, we do not export a lot to the USA compared to Europe and other markets, they could be indirectly affected, Forbes wrote, because other countries will also be affected by tariffs, so they could now give priority in supply to domestic producers who would reduce their placement on the American market, which reduces the space for our exporters.
This means that there will certainly be an effect on Serbia even though the USA is not our major export market. But they are not to be neglected either.
Letter to 14 countries
Trump sent a letter about the introduction of new tariffs to the leaders of 14 countries, including Japan and South Korea, which have been assigned a 25 percent tariff.
The same amount of customs duty is set for Malaysia, Kazakhstan and Tunisia. Tariffs of 30 percent were introduced to South Africa, Bosnia and Herzegovina, 32 percent to Indonesia, 35 percent to Bangladesh, 36 percent to Cambodia and Thailand, and 40 percent to Laos and Myanmar.
In Bosnia and Herzegovina, customs duties of 35 percent should have been introduced in the first distribution of figures.
