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Twitter users / X promote a new crazy theory that suggests that the US government turned to artificial intelligence to calculate new tariffs. The evidence in this case is that all the leading chatbots — ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, and Grok — use the same formula that the US government used to calculate the new tariffs.
For example, in one of these dialogs, ChatGPT they asked:
«What would be a simple way to calculate the tariffs that should be imposed on other countries so that the United States is on a level playing field when it comes to trade deficits? Set a minimum of 10%».
The chatbot responded with the same formula that the US administration used to calculate interest for each individual country:
«Trade deficit with the country / imports from this country».
ChatGPT further clarified that this idea of «has never been used» anywhere else and is something he invented on his own. Obviously, the similarity between the US government’s and ChatGPT’s formulas may be entirely coincidental, but the theory sounds interesting and crazy at the same time.
Vojtek Kopchuk, editor of the Journal of Public Economics experimented with similar requests to ChatGPT, and it gave the same result.
«I think they asked ChatGPT to calculate rates from other countries, so these rates make absolutely no fucking sense», — Kopchuk writes.
By Krishnan Rohit added on X, that this situation «may be the first large-scale application of artificial intelligence technology in geopolitics», and added that not only ChatGPT, but also Gemini, Claude, and Grok give identical answers to the query.
This might be the first large-scale application of AI technology to geopolitics.. 4o, o3 high, Gemini 2.5 pro, Claude 3.7, Grok all give the same answer to the question on how to impose tariffs easily. pic.twitter.com/r1GGubcz8c
— rohit (@krishnanrohit) April 3, 2025
In response to our request, ChatGPT added an important caveat that this formula has its own nuances:
«Кcountries could retaliate with their own tariffs, triggering a trade war, and U.S. consumers would pay more for imported goods. Therefore, policymakers usually take into account additional factors beyond this straightforward calculation».
As a reminder, Trump’s reciprocal tariffs, which come into effect on April 5, hit all countries with a 10% levy (Ukraine included), with exceptions for China (34%), Japan (24%), and the EU (20%). Russia, Belarus, and North Korea were not included in the list because «current tariffs and sanctions against them are already too high and make any meaningful trade impossible», according to the White House press secretary.
Source: Cointelegraph
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