Why Country of Origin Matters in Trump’s Trade War: QuickTake

President Donald Trump’s “reciprocal” tariffs aim to level the playing field in global trade by imposing duties based on where a product is made.

It sounds straightforward: Imports from Taiwan, for example, are subject to 20% tariffs while goods from two of its neighbors, Japan and South Korea, face lower levies of 15%. But the entire enterprise rests on one critical — and often devilishly — tricky question: where was the product actually made?

Sometimes determining a product’s country of origin is genuinely complicated due to numerous suppliers and assembly points around the world. Other times, companies use ...