With less than a month in office, the president has pursued trade actions that could shatter the global trading system and dwarf the trade measures he took over his entire first term.

President Donald Trump is likely to dust off a 1930 trade law largely forgotten for decades to back his new reciprocal U.S. tariffs that will match other countries' higher import taxes, trade and legal experts say.

Amid warnings of price increases, Canada moved quickly to retaliate, China said it had planned countermeasures and Mexico said it would soon unveil its response.

President Donald Trump is taking a blowtorch to the rules that have governed world trade for decades. The “reciprocal’’ tariffs that he announced Thursday are likely to create chaos for global businesses and conflict with America’s allies and adversaries alike.

His campaign billed it as “an eye for an eye, a tariff for a tariff, same exact amount”. The approach taken has been broader. Officials said they would impose the levies on a “country by country” basis,

Trump signed a memo that instructed staff to develop custom tariffs for each country, taking into account features such as their existing tariffs, exchange rates, trade balances and other rules. In outlining its concerns,