President Donald Trump indicated Monday that he could announce new tariffs on imported cars as soon as this week, as his administration works toward a larger “reciprocal tariff” package hitting a broad swath of countries on April 2.

“We are going to be doing automobiles, which you’ve known about for a long time,” Trump told reporters at the White House. “We’ll be announcing that fairly soon, over the next few days probably. And then April 2 comes. That will be reciprocal tariffs.”

Trump made similar remarks earlier Monday at a Cabinet meeting, saying he planned to announce car tariffs “very shortly” and then “we’ll be announcing pharmaceuticals at some point in the not too distant [future] because we have to have pharmaceuticals.”

Trump made the comments a little more than one week before he plans to unveil a broad-based plan to impose reciprocal tariffs on major trading partners, such as China and the European Union, based on the trade barriers that other countries have on American exports.

There is still confusion whether the April 2 announcement will include both the reciprocal tariffs and more-tailored “sectoral” tariffs to protect and develop certain key industrial sectors, like autos, pharmaceuticals and semiconductors.

Asked to clarify that point Monday, Trump at first said the April 2 announcement would cover “everything.” But, he then added, “not all tariffs are included that day.”

He also indicated that the new U.S. reciprocal tariffs may not perfectly match the level of trade barriers that the Trump administration believes American exporters face in a particular market. “We may take less than what they’re charging, because they’ve charged us so much, I don’t think they could take it. In other words, they’ve charged us so much that I’m embarrassed to charge them what they’ve charged us,” Trump said.

The United States imported $471 billion worth of automotive products in 2024, including $214 million worth of passenger cars. Five countries — Mexico, Japan, South Korea, Canada and Germany — supplied most of the auto imports.

The United States imported roughly $210 billion worth of pharmaceutical products and about $62 billion worth of semiconductors in 2024.

A White House official, who was granted anonymity to discuss an issue still under consideration, said the timing of any sectoral tariffs was still under discussion.

“Obviously POTUS has talked a lot about sectoral tariffs, but we may have sectoral tariffs on April 2 and we may not,” the White House official said. “No final decisions have been made yet on sectoral tariffs being tacked onto” the reciprocal tariffs being announced next week.

Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said during a White House Cabinet meeting Monday that the Trump administration plans to launch the “External Revenue Service” on April 2 to handle the tariff revenue collections.

That function is currently performed by U.S. Customs and Border Protection, but Trump has suggested creating the External Revenue Service to do it instead.

In a wide-ranging trade executive order that Trump signed on Jan. 20, he directed Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent to study the issue in consultation with Lutnick and Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem.

CBP is currently housed in DHS but was located in the Treasury Department before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States.