A little over two weeks ago, the Trump administration unveiled its reciprocal tariff policy with great fanfare, including a technical explanation hosted on the U.S. Trade Representative’s (USTR’s) website. That page, which detailed the mathematical model used to justify the tariffs, has since vanished. The now-dead link redirects to a generic landing page.
The page in question once featured the so-called “reciprocal tariff equation,” which purported to calculate appropriate tariff rates by dividing a country’s trade deficit with the U.S. by its total imports, adjusted by two theoretical coefficients: the price elasticity of import demand (ε) and the tariff pass-through rate (ϕ).
When finance journalist James Surowiecki critiqued the USTR’s approach, the White House deputy press secretary responded with a link to this page. Still, others, including economists, journalists, and technically literate observers, demonstrated that the formula collapsed under scrutiny. The selected coefficient values (-4 and 0.25, respectively) conveniently canceled out, reducing a complex economic theory to a simplistic, back-of-the-envelope math problem.
This disappearance of the equation raises troubling questions: Why was it removed? What is the administration doing now? And more importantly—what are they trying to hide?
Why Remove It Now?
The USTR’s quiet removal of this page looks like an admission of failure, but one that comes without accountability. If the administration still believed in its model, it should defend it. Instead, they have chosen silent retraction. Even more concerning, there has been no official explanation, updated methodology, or replacement analysis. Transparency has been replaced by opacity.
One plausible explanation is that they were unprepared for the volume and credibility of the criticism. The backlash didn’t just come from economists and trade analysts—it came from engineers, data scientists, and even high school teachers who recognized the oversimplified math.
Perhaps the administration realized their justification couldn’t withstand public scrutiny and chose to erase it quietly.
What Are They Doing Now?
With the original approach scrubbed, it’s unclear how the USTR will calculate or adjust tariff policy. Are they reverting to ad hoc political judgments? Are they quietly developing more sophisticated models without public disclosure? Or—most concerning—have they abandoned analytical rigor altogether in favor of political optics?
Understandably, the administration would revise policy when the underlying math proves flawed. But responsible policymaking demands more than quiet course correction. It requires transparency, engagement, and a commitment to getting it right. Contrary to the administration’s claims to be the most transparent administration in history, we only see opacity.
Why It Matters
Economic policymaking demands not just accuracy, but accountability. When a model is used to justify policies that affect trillions in trade and millions of jobs, the public has a right to understand how that model works, and whether it holds up. Disappearing the evidence doesn’t solve the problem; it deepens it.
If the administration has abandoned the flawed reciprocal-tariff equation, they should say so, and explain what replaces it. If they stand by it, they should defend it. In this context, silence implies they no longer trust their own math. And they shouldn’t.
A Hollow Strategy Hiding Behind Disappearing Data
What’s most alarming isn’t that the original tariff model was oversimplified. It’s that the administration appears more concerned with maintaining political appearances than correcting serious technical flaws. In engineering, we debug. In science, we revise hypotheses. In government, we should expect the same intellectual honesty.
A U.S. $100 dollar bill is seen December 17, 2009.
Removing the formula without replacing it sends a clear message: This administration may not be interested in economic truth, but it is plenty interested in economic theater. The problem with this is that tariffs aren’t stunts. They’re tools of national strategy, impacting everything from the economy to national security. When used without rigor, they risk becoming weapons of self-inflicted harm.
About the Author: Dave Petri
Dave Petri is a retired Navy Commander and Business Consultant from Mount Airy, NC. He currently serves as the Communications Director for National Security Leaders for America.
waco
April 21, 2025 at 12:34 pm
That magic formula probably originated from Dr Ron Vara.
Dr vara graduated from the university of Pete Retarrdo of california with a doctorate in economics.
Still, tariffs are absolutely necessary in the great era of unrestrained globalization but poor nations should be spared from excessive tariffs or retarrdo tariffs or magic formula tariffs.
Zhduny
April 21, 2025 at 9:14 pm
Trump’s 2025 tariff policy is, basically, great. Grrreat.
Many countries boast openly about getting huge investment projects and enormous growth opportunities.
What they don’t reveal are the dangers that come with the numerous projects and opportunities.
One danger is the lucky recipient nation becoming a massive magnet for migrant labor. This is already truly a massive problem for some nations in Asia but it’s largely ignored.
Another danger is due to ‘opportunities’, drugs and other crimes are visibly growing, and some nations are now clearly evolving into police states.
One other problem is the underworld is also becoming increasingly powerful, like in Australia, where hitmen and assassins are in high demand.
Thanks for the tariff policy, Mr trump. Keep it up.
David Chang
April 21, 2025 at 9:15 pm
God blesses people in world.
Because the tariff of POTUS Trump is about morality, not about science.
POTUS Trump’s tariff policy is just, and the calculation formula is just. Because it is difficult to investigate and calculate the true values of non-tariff barriers and Currency manipulation, those who oppose POTUS Trump have no just comments, because non-tariff barrier, NTB, is one of the Unfair Competition.
However, during POTUS Trump’s first presidency, he called out the China Communist Party to repeal NTB. In this dispute, people also discovered the internal danger of the US military, that is, whether the certification report of the Steel Billet is not accurate, and this internal danger is also related to the steel industry of the United States and Japan.
Therefore, Treasury Secretary Bessent is right, I wish he talk about NTB more, because NTB is not moral. The authenticity of goods certification reports affects the economy, industry, and defense, and even affects the employment and health of people, because the controversy over international trade certification reports ten years ago included the amount of pesticide residues in honey.
The foreign policy of the United States in the past four decades is like steroids. Package Plant Export is making the US economy to be flashy.
The same is true for the semiconductor industry, which has recently caused a lot of controversy. The Wassenaar Arrangement is an agreement like the NATO treaty. Every country joining this agreement should fulfill obligations. However, since the Ukraine civil war, TSMC has forgotten its obligations of the Wassenaar Arrangement, and the Taipei authorities have used TSMC to push the US Navy’s 7th Fleet to defend the Taiwan Strait. Outsourcing of the semiconductor industry creates another internal danger of the U.S. military.
Fair Trade is to achieve the morality of Commerce.
So this tariff dispute is testing the faith of people. If people in other countries prepare for national defense with their wealth, and keep the free market, POTUS Trump will not have the tariff policy to abolish all tariffs in other countries.
But the Washington Post’s reports are not only immoral, but also helping Communist and the Nazi to promote atheism, that is, worship science. Because economy is sociology, and sociology is not science. Beside the supply and demand curve, it is impossible for economy scholars to predict the future. The Soviet Union’s planned economy has proved that economy is not science, althiugh to control agricultural production with pesticides. However, stock trading is not economy, it is accounting, and it is impossible for economy scholars to predict future prices. Those who make big money always market manipulation and insider trading.
Market manipulation and insider trading are usually with Government subsidies or incentives. These are not moral, because these are not only cheating, but also allowing certain people to gain more benefits, that’s rent-seeking. So these are not equal opportunity.
God bless people in America.
Idealismo
April 21, 2025 at 11:20 pm
The rates, however they are calculated, are intended to blunt China’s economic war against the US and every other country on Earth.
That’s the point.
Since you’re the mathlete, tell us how to use your expertise to fight China’s undeclared non-military war against its neighbors and the West.
The Chinese government’s behavior is calculated to bend all countries to its will . . . to satisfy its interests no matter what the people of a given country may want. Its interest is to enrich and empower China, to make its one-party Chinese-only oligarchy the center of a new Chinese-led new world order. That is the purpose of China’s silent trade war against the world and that oligarchy’s hegemony is the goal that the Chinese government is pursuing.
That oligarchy employs in a purposeful and organized fashion every possible instrument of China’s national power. Like an octopus with multiple tentacles it employ academics, scientists, students, pseudo-journalists, ethnic diasporas, hackers, Chinese companies, criminals, and greedy foreign enablers to advance China’s imperialist and hegemonic goals. Their government compels them all to do its bidding and it expects them to use flattery, deception, theft, fraud, bribery, coercion and every other method to make others do their government’s bidding.
There’s no gunfire or bloodshed but the goal is the same: your subjugation to a secretive, self-centered, racist, anti-democratic, human-rights abusing, and totalitarian regime.
It’s war by non-military means.
If you don’t see it, you’re a sucker.
If you think it’s friendly and the verdict of the so-called free market, then you’re a fool.
If you take a little bit of their money, and give away your country’s priceless sovereignty, R&D and manufacturing, then you’re either their useful idiot or a traitor.
So if you don’t like the administration’s math, then remember the point of this exercise, quit whining, and offer to help.