“The United States has the lowest tariffs in the world — the lowest non-tariff barriers — and what do we get for that? We get a half-a-trillion-dollar a year trade deficit, which is draining us dry, taking our jobs, putting them offshore, harming the workers of America, and driving down wages.”
— Peter Navarro, director of White House National Trade Council, interview on Fox News, March 2, 2018

Aside from the fact that anyone with remedial economics knows that the trade deficit has its origins elsewhere, it is interesting to follow up on this statement. The Washington Post does some digging. There is an interesting issue related to the measurement of “non-tariff barriers” but Credit Swiss apparently did a tally:

Here are my favorite non-trade barriers. The Japanese used to be the quite creative until they were outdone by the French:

• Japan’s used to refuse to import American skis because Japanese snow is different. So, Japan argued, US skis cannot not meet Japanese safety standards.
•  When Japan refused to lower its quota on American Beef imports in the 1980s, the Japanese argued that they were physically incapable of eating more beef. Mr. Hata, the Japanese agriculture minister, explained that that Japanese people have longer intestines than other people.
• Foreign pharmaceutical manufacturers often cannot sell their drugs in japan because their exhaustive tests for new drugs are judged inadequate. These tests were conducted on other humans and not Japanese.
• France then got back at the Japanese and required that all Japanese VCRs be inspected in the city of Poitiers before they could be sold in France. Poitiers is a tiny town in the middle of France far from ports and highway connections to ports.

It is true that average tariffs (which can actually be measured) are low in the US, but certainly not the lowest in the world according to the WTO which spends a fortune monitoring tariff data.