Only a handful of countries are exempt from Donald Trump's tariffs - and people aren't happy

US president Donald Trump announced his sweeping global tariffs that will affect the price of importing goods into the US, but there are some eye-raising exceptions.

On Wednesday (2 April) Trump announced tariffs as high as up to 50 per cent on imports entering the United States.

In what Trump is dubbing his “reciprocal tariff” regime, almost every country in the world, including the UK, will be hit with a minimum so-called “baseline” tariff of 10 per cent, with others hit with much larger duties.

Meanwhile, some of the smallest economies in the world such as Cambodia and Vietnam are being hit with extremes of 49 per cent and 46 per cent tariffs respectively.

There are, however, some notable exceptions from the full tariffs list, including North Korea and Russia. In fact, Cuba, Belarus, North Korea and Russia all appear to be exempt from the reciprocal tariffs. (Canada and Mexico also don’t feature due to the US-Mexico-Canada Agreement, but each country has been hit with other trade penalties imposed in February 2025.)

US sanctions on Moscow already “preclude any meaningful trade”, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told Axios on Wednesday.

However, Russia and North Korea’s exemptions didn’t take people long to spot, as it comes amid fears that Trump is cosying up to the controversial Russian leader Vladimir Putin.

“Can anyone tell me why Russia is just about the only country — if not the ONLY country — that is exempt from Trump’s tariffs? Anyone?” someone on X/Twitter asked.

Another said: “The only two countries on Earth exempt from Trump’s tariffs are, no joke, Russia and North Korea.”

Someone else wrote: “Of course the morons’ tariffs exempt Russia, North Korea and Cuba. I wonder what those countries have in common…”

On Wednesday, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told Axios that Moscow and Belarus were not included because existing US sanctions already “preclude any meaningful trade”.

However, news outlets noted that even countries with smaller trading volumes with the US were included on their tariffs list, such as Brunei and Mauritius.

Amid the intensifying trade war, Trump’s recent comments on car tariffs have been seen as his most worrying yet.

Sign up for our free indy100 weekly newsletter

How to join the indy100's free WhatsApp channel

Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings