Current U.S. tariff levels are "bound" in the World Trade Organization, meaning the U.S. could only raise them by entering into negotiations with other countries, which are likely to demand concessions. | AP Photo/ Evan Vucci Trump backs a 'reciprocal tax' on imports

President Donald Trump on Monday said he wants to impose a "reciprocal tax" on imports from countries that have higher tariffs than the U.S.

“We are going to charge countries outside of our country — countries that take advantage of the United States," Trump said at a White House meeting with state and local government officials about the administration's infrastructure plan. "Some of them are so-called allies, but they are not allies on trade.”


Trump seemed to be complaining about the U.S.' relatively low duty structure when compared with those of some other countries. The average U.S. tariff is about 3.5 percent and the average trade-weighted tariff is even lower at 2.4 percent, according to WTO statistics. In comparison, China's average tariff is 9.9 percent and its trade-weighted tariff is 4.4 percent.

The trade-weighted average reflects the duties collected on actual imports, as opposed to the simple average of all of a country's individual tariff lines. Even countries with relatively low average tariffs may have extremely high "peak" tariffs on sensitive products that preclude trade — and that seems to be what Trump was focused on.

Other countries, Trump added, "will send in their product. We won't charge them anything and we send them our product, same product as they're sending us; and they'll charge us 50 and 75 percent tax — and that's very unfair. So we’re going to be doing very much a reciprocal tax, and you’ll be hearing about that during the week and during the coming months."

The details of what Trump intends to propose were not immediately clear. Current U.S. tariff levels are "bound" in the World Trade Organization, meaning the U.S. could only raise them by entering into negotiations with other countries, which are likely to demand concessions for any changes.

In addition, Congress has the final word on taxes and tariffs, so Trump would have to persuade lawmakers of the wisdom of any changes in that area.

Rebecca Morin contributed to this report.