The President of the United States of America, Donald Trump announced reciprocal tariffs on 56 countries that traded with the United States on April 2nd, 2025. Terming the day as “Liberation Day”, Trump’s new action caused unprecedented panic worldwide with all countries facing tariffs of 10% and some even as high as 54%.While some countries reverted by applying their own tariffs on the United States, others chose to enter into negotiations with the largest economy in the world. The deadline for the finalisation of tariff negotiations was July 8 earlier but was extended to August 1 by Trump.While most countries have been working hard to crack deals with the POTUS, others have been staunch in their stand. This includes countries like Japan and South Korea.Now, addressing 14 such countries with whom the United States has not yet finalised the percentage of reciprocal tariffs, Trump took to his social media platform Truth Social where he shared warning letters to them. In the letters, he hinted at opportunities for further negotiations while simultaneously warning that reprisals of tariffs would lead to a like-for-like response.”If, for any reason, you decide to raise your tariffs, then, whatever the number you choose to raise them by, will be added on to the 25% that we charge,” he wrote.Japan’s Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba and South Korea’s President Lee Jae-myung were among the first recipients of the letter that has now gone viral on the internet for all the wrong reasons. A post trending on the social media platform X revealed how a Japanese commentator analysed an American letter only to find a disappointing level of writing and that the same letters had been sent to all the countries irrespective of their individual differences.This “indicated to him a complete gutting of White House or trade office personnel capable of handling such overtures, professionals canned and replaced by political hack incompetents.” He also added how the entire act reflects that the White House is facing a staffing problem likely due to DOGE.The photograph shared in the post showed the letter annotated with red markings showing a variety of grammatical and punctuation mistakes, throughout- from the beginning to the end. The post has received 5.3M views on X with about 1.2K comments all reacting to the letter and its details.
Social media reactions
Image credits: X
Netizens from the US and Japan reacted strongly to the letter and its mistakes adding how Trump’s governance was leading America towards an unavoidable doom.”Ive never seen such an uneducated letter written by a head of state! It’s a clear example of the fact that Trump and his grifters have absolutely zero clue about how to conduct trade, and the fact that the US thinks they can impose tariffs” commented an X user.Some shared other posts where Trump has made spelling mistakes, such as one where he responded to the Democrats associating his campaign with Russia after James Comey’s testimony. “Democrats can’t find a smocking gun tying the Trump campaign to Russia after James Comey’s testimony. No Smocking Gun… No Collusion” wrote the president.”This supposed “learned scholar” missed a writing communications class or two. Voicey writing has no concern for Oxford grammatical correctness. The memo is consistently VOICEY as are every other WH communication,” pointed out another.”The MAGA crowd doesn’t care about the dumbing down of the Executive Branch or the obviously unprofessional manner in which the letters were written. They applaud the 5th grade bully style of communication,” added another social media user, reflecting the MAGA mindset and its appreciation for every result Trump achieves no matter what way.Countries that have not concluded the trade deal with the US have until August 1st, 2025. While the deadline was extended once, Trump did not seem to indicate another extension when asked if the deadline was firm: “I would say firm, but not 100% firm. If they call up and they say we’d like to do something a different way, we’re going to be open to that.”