Since Mr. Trump came into office in January, the average effective U.S. tariff rate has soared to 16.6 percent from 2.5 percent, according to tracking by the Budget Lab at Yale University, a nonpartisan research center. That’s a dramatic increase compared with the president’s first term, when it rose to 2.5 percent from 1.5 percent, primarily as a result of Mr. Trump’s trade war with China.

If all the tariffs that the president is now threatening on trading partners go into effect on Aug. 1, that average tariff rate would rise to 20.6 percent, the highest since 1910. According to the Yale Budget Lab’s calculations, that would also top the level of the Smoot-Hawley tariffs.

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