US customs agents have begun collecting President Donald Trump’s 10 per cent tariff on all imports from many countries, including Australia, as large protests against Trump and his advisor Elon Musk broke out across the US and Europe.

Higher levies on goods from 57 larger trading partners are due to start next week.

The initial 10 per cent “baseline” tariff to be paid by US importers took effect at US seaports, airports and customs warehouses on Saturday.

“This is the single biggest trade action of our lifetime,” said Kelly Ann Shaw, a trade lawyer at Hogan Lovells and former White House trade adviser during Trump’s first term.

Shaw told a Brookings Institution event on Thursday that she expected the tariffs to evolve over time as countries seek to negotiate lower rates.

“But this is huge. This is a pretty seismic and significant shift in the way that we trade with every country on earth,” she added.

Trump’s Wednesday tariff announcement shook global stock markets.

Prices for oil and commodities plunged while investors fled to the safety of government bonds.

Among the countries first hit with the 10 per cent tariff are Australia, the United Kingdom, Colombia, Argentina, Egypt and Saudi Arabia.

A US Customs and Border Protection bulletin to shippers indicates no grace period for cargoes on the water at midnight on Saturday.

But a US Customs and Border Protection bulletin did provide a 51-day grace period for cargoes loaded onto vessels or planes and in transit to the US before 12.01am ET on Saturday.

These cargoes need to arrive by 12.01am ET on May 27 to avoid the 10 per cent duty.

At the same hour on Wednesday, Trump’s higher “reciprocal” tariff rates of 11 per cent to 50 per cent are due to take effect.

European Union imports will be hit with a 20 per cent tariff while Chinese goods will be hit with a 34 per cent tariff, bringing Trump’s total new levies on China to 54 per cent.

China on Saturday said “the market has spoken” in rejecting Trump’s tariffs after it hit the US with a slew of countermeasures, including extra levies of 34 per cent on all US goods and export curbs on some rare earth minerals.

“China has been hit much harder than the USA, not even close,” Trump said on Saturday on social media.

“THIS IS AN ECONOMIC REVOLUTION, AND WE WILL WIN. HANG TOUGH, it won’t be easy, but the end result will be historic.”

Shortly after posting the comment, Trump was spotted arriving at his Trump National Golf Club in Jupiter, Florida, reading a New York Post article covering China’s retaliation to Trump’s tariffs and the stock market “crash”.

Surge of protests

Thousands of protesters have gathered in Washington DC and across the United States, part of about 1200 demonstrations.

The demonstrations were expected to form the largest single day of protest against US President Donald Trump and his billionaire ally Elon Musk since they launched a rapid-fire effort to overhaul government.

Protests were planned in all 50 US states plus Canada and Mexico.

Terry Klein, a retired biomedical scientist from Princeton, New Jersey, was among those who gathered by the stage beneath the Washington Monument.

She said she drove down to attend the rally to protest Trump’s policies on “everything from immigration to the DOGE stuff to the tariffs this week, to education. I mean, our whole country is under attack, all of our institutions, all the things that make America what it is”.

The crowd around the memorial continued to build throughout the day.

Wayne Hoffman, 73, a retired money manager from West Cape May, New Jersey, said he was concerned about Trump’s economic policies including his widespread use of tariffs.

“It’s going to cost the farmers in the red states. It’s going to cost people their jobs – certainly their 401Ks. People have lost tens of thousands of dollars,” Hoffman said.

About 6km from Trump’s Mar-a-Lago in West Palm Beach, more than 400 demonstrators gathered on a sunny day in protest.

Drivers honked their horns in support of the pastel-and khaki-clad demonstrators as they passed by.

“Markets tank, Trump golfs,” read one sign.

Several hundred people gathered outside the headquarters of the Social Security Administration, a top DOGE target, near Baltimore to protest against cuts to the agency which delivers benefits to the elderly and disabled.

Linda Falcao, who turns 65 in two months, told the crowd she had been paying into the Social Security fund since the age of 16.

“I’m terrified, I’m angry, I’m pissed, I’m bewildered this could happen to the United States,” she said.

“I do love America and I’m heartbroken. I need my money. I want my money. I want my benefits!”.

The crowd chanted, “It’s our money!”

White House assistant press secretary Liz Huston disputed the protesters’ charge that Trump aimed to cut Social Security and Medicaid.

“President Trump’s position is clear: he will always protect Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid for eligible beneficiaries. Meanwhile, the Democrats’ stance is giving Social Security, Medicaid, and Medicare benefits to illegal aliens, which will bankrupt these programs and crush American seniors,” Huston said in an email.

Hours before the protests were due to kick off in the United States, hundreds of anti-Trump demonstrators living in Europe gathered in Berlin, Frankfurt, Paris and London to voice opposition to Trump’s sweeping makeover of US foreign and domestic policies.

Jaguar Land Rover move

Jaguar Land Rover will pause shipments of its cars made in the United Kingdom to the United States for a month, it says, as it considers how to mitigate the cost of US President Donald Trump’s 25 per cent tariff.

Jaguar Land Rover, which is owned by India’s Tata Motors, confirmed the temporary export suspension after the Times newspaper reported the plan.

“As we work to address the new trading terms with our business partners, we are taking some short-term actions, including a shipment pause in April, as we develop our mid- to longer-term plans,” JLR said in an emailed statement.

The UK’s car industry, which employs 200,000 people directly, is highly exposed to the new tariffs.

The US is the second-biggest importer of UK-made cars after the European Union, with nearly a 20 per cent share, data from industry body SMMT shows.

Global scramble

Some world leaders moved quickly to strike a deal with Trump to avert economic disruption while others weighed countermeasures.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is expected to visit the White House on Monday, sources said, as unspecified goods from the country face a 17 per cent tariff under the new policy.

Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba was reportedly seeking a telephone conversation with Trump.

Japan faces a 24 per cent levy.

Vietnam, which benefited from the shift of US supply chains away from China after Trump’s first-term trade war with China, will be hit with a 46 per cent tariff and agreed on Friday to discuss a deal with Trump.

The head of Taiwan’s National Security Council was in Washington DC for talks with the Trump administration that were expected to include the tariffs, a source said.

Italian Economy Minister Giancarlo Giorgetti warned on Saturday against the imposition of retaliatory tariffs on the United States, saying at a business forum near Milan that doing so could cause damage.

Canada and Mexico were exempt from both Trump’s latest duties because they are still subject to a 25 per cent tariff related to the US fentanyl crisis for goods that do not comply with the US-Mexico-Canada rules of origin.

Trump is excluding goods subject to separate, 25 per cent national security tariffs, including steel and aluminium, cars, trucks and car parts.

His administration also released a list of more than 1000 product categories exempted from the tariffs.

Valued at $US645 billion ($1.1 trillion) in 2024 imports, these include crude oil, petroleum products and other energy imports, pharmaceuticals, uranium, titanium, lumber and semiconductors and copper.

Except for energy, the Trump administration is investigating several of these sectors for further national security tariffs.

—with AAP