KUALA LUMPUR: Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim has refuted the United States’s (US) claim that Malaysia has imposed a 47 per cent tariff on US imports into Malaysia.
He said the calculation was based on the simple ratio of the US trade deficit with Malaysia to its total imports from Malaysia in 2024.
Anwar said this claim was used as the basis by the US to impose a retaliatory tariff of 24 per cent on Malaysia, which is a 50 per cent reduction on the 47 per cent tariff that Malaysia is said to have imposed on imports from that country.
"We believe this calculation does not reflect the actual tariff level and is not based on sound economic theory. The fact is that, on average, tariffs imposed on US imports into Malaysia are only 5.6 per cent.
"This was acknowledged by the Office of the United States Trade Representative in the report ‘2025 National Trade Estimate Report on Foreign Trade Barriers of the President of the United States on the Trade Agreements Program’ published on March 31, 2025,” the prime minister said during the Special Parliamentary Meeting on the US tariffs today.
Anwar said that the government takes the US’s imposition of retaliatory tariffs seriously.
"Therefore, taking into account the importance of the US as Malaysia’s largest export destination and source of foreign investment, the government believes that any challenges to trade relations must be addressed pragmatically and based on national interests, while maintaining good relations with all of Malaysia’s trading partners,” he said. - Bernama
