Following the announcement by President Trump of sweeping global tariffs, social media users were quick to decipher the math behind them. In addition to a baseline 10% tariff applied to the entire world, individual countries will face extra tariffs based on how “unfairly” the Trump administration believes they are treating the U.S. However, it appears that the White House may have relied on simplistic suggestions from a chatbot to determine its tariffs, which are not actually reciprocal to what other countries charge the U.S. on imports.

According to The Verge:

Economist James Surowiecki quickly reverse-engineered a possible explanation for the tariff pricing, finding that each of the White House’s numbers could be recreated by taking a given country’s trade deficit with the U.S. and dividing it by their total exports to the U.S., then halving the result to get a “discounted reciprocal tariff.” Although the White House objected to this claim and published the formula it claims to have used, as noted by Politico, the formula bears a strong resemblance to Surowiecki’s method.

The Verge asked various chatbots for a “simple” way to rectify trade imbalances with other countries and found that they all suggested a formula closely aligned with the one used by the White House.

This should not be surprising to anyone familiar with the fundamentals of chatbots, as they mimic what they frequently see posted online. The key to understanding chatbots is to preface anything they say with, “I have heard many people say that…” However, just as you would not trust a survey of fifty people unfamiliar with a subject, you should not trust the statements of a chatbot, as they often confidently express incorrect or confusing information.

Despite the administration’s denial of relying on a basic chatbot over experienced economists, it has already faced criticism for its use of consumer apps. Recently, it was involved in a scandal for extensively using the consumer app Signal to discuss confidential war plans, a move likely influenced by Elon Musk, known for using Signal. Furthermore, the DOGE cost-cutting initiative has been open about its plans to use AI across the federal government to reduce costs.

The idea that the White House hastily assembled its tariff strategy is further supported by the inclusion of uninhabited territories like Heard Island on the list. Additionally, countries facing tariffs, such as Australia, actually have a surplus with the United States, meaning they purchase more from the U.S. than they export. This raises questions about whether the tariff suggestions were thoroughly reviewed before being implemented as policy.

There are valid reasons why a country might have a trade deficit with another. As a service economy, the United States focuses on lucrative work like product design, software development, supply chain management, and other tasks, while outsourcing physically demanding labor to other nations. The U.S. has a trade surplus in services as countries utilize many American services, including Facebook and Netflix. Every country has a comparative advantage, something they excel at that other countries do not.

In simple terms, Americans do not want to do the grunt work, so the country imports a significant amount of goods from countries willing to do it. Even with tariffs, labor in America is so expensive that it would likely still be cheaper to import goods. Moreover, countries hit with new tariffs, such as Madagascar and Ethiopia, are unlikely to suddenly start purchasing billions of dollars’ worth of American hard goods, making the punishment seem unproductive. However, President Trump expects factories to suddenly thrive, and deporting migrants will not make lettuce more expensive.

The Penguin on Heard Island after hearing the tariff news pic.twitter.com/DIFBvDFWAO

— High Yield Harry (@HighyieldHarry) April 3, 2025