India, April 3 -- India charges a tariff of 52% on US products, Donald Trump claimed while slapping a tariff of 26% on India as part of his reciprocal tariff announcements. Where does this 52% number come from? Some experts have suggested that Trump's calculations of tariffs imposed by a specific country could have nothing to do with tariffs at all. Instead, they seem to be a mark-up of US's merchandise trade deficit with a given country.

A cursory analysis of the tariffs levied on other countries proves that this is the rationale.

A post (one among the many which pointed this out) on microblogging site X (formerly twitter) by Justin Wolfers, professor of economics at University of Michigan flagged this.

OMG, this is *bananas*. The Whi...