Commotion! Trump’s New Tariff Calculations Said to Use ChatGPT

Jakarta, CNBC Indonesia –President of the United States (US) Donald Trump has issued a new import policy that burdens many countries. The calculation formula has been questioned by many parties, some even say it is only taken from calculations from Artificial Intelligence (AI) such as ChatGPT.

As is known, Trump has applied a base import tariff of 10% to all countries. In addition, there is a reciprocal or reciprocal tariff imposed, such as Indonesia at 32%.

The reciprocal tariff is imposed on each country with a different amount. This is based on the trade deficit figure that arises.

Where did this figure come from?

The Verge wrote that it turned out that the figure came from a simplified calculation that AI Chatbot recommended. Economist James Surowiecki quickly tried to find an explanation for the tariff price.

He found that someone could recreate every figure used by the White House simply by taking a country’s trade deficit with the US. Then, divide it by their total exports to the US.

“Divide those two numbers, and you’ve got a reciprocal discount rate ready to go,” he said, quoted Friday (4/4/2025).

“That’s incredible nonsense,” he added.

The Verge page also wrote that the Trump team used this approach because the formulation needed to be done in a short time. US media, Politico also indicated something similar.

Meanwhile, a number of X users are also aware of this. That, if and ask ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, or Grok to solve the trade deficit and put the US on an equal level, they will provide the same formula. Namely the deficit divided by exports.

On the other hand, the White House has denied this claim. The Trump Palace said it would publish the formula they said was used.aid.

SOURCE : CNBC INDONESIA