'The theory that ChatGPT came up with the Trump tariffs' emerges, with people talking about how the formula for calculating tariffs is too rough



In the reciprocal tariffs

announced by President Donald Trump on April 3, 2025, comprehensive tariff measures were announced for countries around the world, including a 24% tariff on Japan, but since the 'countries' targeted included uninhabited islands near the Antarctic Ocean where only wild animals live, American media reported , 'Who would have thought that a trade war would start with penguins, not Putin?' In addition, the announced tax rate was based on a very simple calculation, and when you ask a chatbot such as ChatGPT about tariffs, it returns almost the same calculation result, so there is widespread speculation on the Internet that the tax rate was calculated by AI.

Trump's new tariff math looks a lot like ChatGPT's | The Verge
https://www.theverge.com/news/642620/trump-tariffs-formula-ai-chatgpt-gemini-claude-grok

Critics suspect Trump's weird tariff math came from chatbots - Ars Technica
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2025/04/critics-suspect-trumps-weird-tariff-math-came-from-chatbots/

President Trump has announced a tariff policy that would impose a flat 10% tariff on all trade partners around the world, with each country adding on top of that with tariffs of up to 50%.



It has been explained that the additional amount was calculated taking into account each country's tariffs and non-tariff barriers , but the specific basis for the calculation has not been provided.

When the tax rate was announced, it was quickly pointed out that it was derived from a very simple formula. Journalist James Surowiecki wrote on X (formerly Twitter) that 'I found out where these fake tariffs came from. Contrary to what they say, they're not actually calculated from tariffs and non-tariff barriers. Instead, for every country, they just divide the trade deficit with that country by the amount of exports that country has to the US. This is nonsense.'



According to Surowiecki, the US trade deficit with Indonesia is $17.9 billion, while Indonesia's exports are $28 billion. Therefore, the calculation is '179 ÷ 280 = 64%, which is the same as what President Trump claims as Indonesia's tariff rate on the US. The 'reduced reciprocal tariffs' that the US imposes on Indonesia are the result divided in half.



POLITICO , a political news site, confirmed that Surowiecki's comments apply to tariffs on many countries, including Japan.



What’s more, when social media users asked leading chatbots, including ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude and Grok, how to eliminate the trade deficit, they were surprisingly consistent in coming up with the formula: “deficit divided by exports.”



In fact, when The Verge asked four major chatbots for a simple way to calculate the tariffs the United States should impose to balance the bilateral trade deficit between the United States and its trading partners and bring the bilateral trade deficit to zero, they all gave the same answer.

There were subtle differences in the answers of each chatbot - for example, Grok and Claude both suggested halving the tariffs of the other country to come up with a 'reasonably discounted reciprocal tariff,' but they disagreed on whether a 10% basic tariff should be added to the total tariff rate. Still, The Verge says the four chatbots' answers had more in common than differences.

I tried asking Grok a question and got the following response:



The AIs acknowledged that the calculation of tariff rates was too rough, with ChatGPT telling Ars Technica, a foreign media outlet that conducted a similar test, 'This simple method ignores the complex dynamics of international trade.' Gemini, which issued the most stern warning, emphasized that 'this is only a highly simplified conceptual approach that ignores the enormous complexities of the real world.'

Even the most optimistic Grok said, 'Imposing tariffs is not necessarily an easy way to do it.' In fact, Grok's response above includes the sentences, 'This calculation is only a theoretical guideline, as trade is affected not only by simple bilateral relations but also by global supply chains and exchange rates,' and 'This is a gross simplification of the real economic situation, and more detailed data and analysis are needed for practical purposes.'

The Verge said, 'It's unclear whether the Trump campaign used AI tools to create this easy trade policy, and we don't know how a chatbot that just spits out information from its training data arrived at this particular formula. But regardless of how the tariffs were devised, the whole world is watching to see if they go into effect on April 5, 2025, and if so, how the Trump campaign's rough calculations will affect international trade.'

Related Posts:

in Software, Posted by log1l_ks