Donald Trump threatens to slap tariffs on almost all Chinese goods – more than US$500 billion – after Beijing fights back

Donald Trump threatens to slap tariffs on almost all Chinese goods – more than US$500 billion – after Beijing fights back

3 thoughts on “Donald Trump threatens to slap tariffs on almost all Chinese goods – more than US$500 billion – after Beijing fights back

  1. Trump is enacting $500 billion in tariffs, and the Chinese are hitting back by enacting $60 Billion in tariffs.

    This fact tells me what part of the problem is. We are importing nearly 10 TIMES as much Chinese product as they are importing from us. That ratio has to be a problem for American business, I would think.

    1. Not at all. America has a service-based economy. The lower prices are, the more services people can afford. Almost every economist says that trade deficits are unimportant, and many economists say they are actually beneficial for service-based economies. (If you don’t produce a lot, make sure you can import things at the lowest possible price.)

      The plain fact of the matter is that the USA will never be a 19th-century industrial giant again, nor should it be.

      And 99.9% of all economists argue that free trade is best for everyone on both sides of the balance of trade, because it maximizes the strength of the world’s economic engine, allowing everyone to purchase from the most efficiently-produced process.

      The one place where we really need to export goods, and the world needs to import from us, is in agriculture, a commodity we have too much of, and the world has too little of. Let’s hope Trump comes to his senses before he puts America’s cherished farmers out of work (or has to create a form of welfare for them).

  2. Trump cannot get it through his head that is not the exporters in China that pay these tariffs, but the importers in the United States. Yes, it will raise the cost of Chinese goods here, but if there is no other source of supply, it will not result in reduced Chinese sales here. The effect will be that of a sales tax on Chinese goods.

    On the other had, Republicans tend to like sales taxes as a means of funding the government, since they are “regressive” – they fall more heavily on the poor than on the rich. I doubt Trump is thinking of that, but some of the people enabling him may be.

Comments are closed.