President Trump is adopting a more aggressive trade policy than he accepted during his first term, which has left him with no restrictions on how to put the United States at the forefront, with little pretense of investigation or conducting Detailed review.
Since taking office, Mr. Trump has threatened tariffs on goods on every global trading partner. This includes a proposal to tax imports from Canada, Mexico and China over $1.3 trillion, the amount of trade volumes affected throughout his term.
On Thursday, Mr. Trump proposed his most aggressive and important measures to date and proposed a return on global tariffs – a move that clearly demonstrates the president’s tariffs on weapons and counter-trading partners There is no doubt about the weapon.
Mr. Trump ordered his advisers to calculate new tariff rates in other countries around the world based on the tariffs they charge for the U.S. and other practices, including their subsidies to U.S. goods and subsidies that support their industries.
The president’s decision to design what he calls “reciprocal tariffs” could undermine the commitments made internationally through the World Trade Organization. This will end decades of commitments the United States usually makes internationally and potentially usher in a new era of corporate uncertainty and global trade wars.
Some of Mr. Trump’s threats may constitute a negotiation strategy and cannot be achieved. He believes that tariffs are a powerful and persuasive tool that he can easily deploy to force other countries to make concessions on immigration, drug enforcement and even their territory. But he and his supporter base also viewed tariffs as a crucial policy, a way to reverse decades of factory departures from the U.S. and create jobs and narrow trade deficits.
Although Mr. Trump has long held these views, he was detained during his first term during his first term and they saw value in a more open trade. Some of his own advisers, leading Republican politicians, and many in the business community believe that positive tariffs will harm the stock market and the global economy.
This time, the president is flanked by advisers who support his combative trade agenda. Among them is Peter Navarro, an enthusiastic trade skeptic who is one of Mr. Trump’s top trade advisers and is helping to develop his policies. Howard Lutnick has been nominated for Commerce Secretary and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has also publicly announced support for tariffs.
During Mr. Trump’s first semester, he spent more than a year imposing any tariffs. The president was shocked by the world in April 2017, through a national security investigation into tens of thousands of dollars in steel and aluminum imports, including imports from allies such as Canada, Europe and Mexico. However, it was not until a year later that such inquiries were levied.
In August 2017, the president announced an investigation into China’s trade practices, which Mr. Trump repeatedly called “unfair.” While he eventually imposed a comprehensive tariff on more than $300 billion of goods, they didn’t start effective until July 2018 after his trade negotiators wrote a report and held a public hearing.
Mr. Trump is no longer willing to wait for a long investigation before imposing tariffs. The president commissioned his advisers on nearly twenty trade topics on his first day of office, which expires in April. But since then, the president has announced several related trade lawsuits without waiting for the report to be seen.
On Thursday, Mr. Trump outlined his reciprocal tariff plan — also the subject of April’s research — which he said would remove decades of unfair U.S. relations. The White House profile highlights examples of products taxed by other countries at higher rates, such as Brazil’s 18% tariff on ethanol compared to the U.S. tariffs.
“We don’t want it to hurt other countries, but they’ve used our years and they’ve charged us with tariffs,” Mr. Trump said. “If they charge us, we’ll charge them.”
This is in the event that he said that as of March 12, he would impose a 25% tariff on steel and aluminum from all countries without excluding it.
On February 1, Mr. Trump imposed tariffs on all goods in Canada and Mexico (more than $900 billion in trade) and tariffs on concerns about illegal drugs and immigration.
After winning some modest concessions, he eventually paused the measures for a month. But he put an additional 10% tariff on all Chinese goods (more than $400 billion in products) as the punishment he said was Beijing’s failure to curb traffic from fentanyl into the United States.
Whether other troops will eventually dissuade Mr. Trump remains to be seen. He could be shocked by the stock market crash, which he has always seen as a record of his performance – although on Thursday, the market closed higher as investors shrugged, as Mr. Trump announced the information. Or maybe complaints from businesses retaliated abroad and complaints from farmers relying on export sales may encourage him to soften some of the plans.
But so far, Mr. Trump has not shown much sympathy for the consequences of the fast-moving approach to businesses and governments around the world. The tariff threat has caused frustration, anger and even boycott abroad. The EU, China, Canada and Mexico are working on their retaliation lists that could hurt American farmers and other exporters.
Some domestic manufacturers have expressed support for the presidential agenda. Kevin Dempsey, CEO of the Iron and Steel Academy, praised Mr. Trump’s actions in a statement, calling it “a comprehensive plan to restore fairness in U.S. trade relations.”
But other companies say they have frozen investment and hiring plans as they wait to see if the president will move forward with tight tariffs.
David French, executive vice president of the National Retail Federation, said his team supports reducing trade barriers and imbalances, but the size of the president’s commitment “is huge and will greatly damage our supply chains”.
“This could lead to price increases for hard-working American households and erode household spending capabilities,” he said. He mentioned that the index of consumer sentiment continued to decline, “hints that consumers were shocked by the uncertainty of the trade war.”
In a statement Tuesday, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which represents European businesses, said tariffs on steel and aluminum would “have a broad and overwhelming negative impact on both sides’ work, prosperity and security in the Atlantic Ocean.”
Douglas Irwin, a trade historian at Dartmouth College, said Mr. Trump’s proposed tariffs would be one of the largest trade tax growth in U.S. history and since the 1930s Smoot-Hawley The largest trade tax since the tariffs.
He wrote that the president threatened to impose only goods on Canada, Mexico and China historic events on U.S. trade policy. ”
Trade proposals, especially so-called reciprocity tariffs (which will be based on a seemingly subjective list of standards) may also be the ultimate blow to the growing global trading system led by the World Trade Organization. In an upcoming article, Foreign Relations Commission trade experts Edward Alden and Jennifer Hillman said the president’s proposal “a complete violation of our liability for putting tariffs under negotiation restrictions.”
“That will give the rest of the WTO rules a place,” they said.
Still, Mr. Alden said he was not sure if Mr. Trump could or was willing to follow his tenacious approach. He said there could be a fierce crackdown on U.S. businesses, and enforcing many different tariff rules around the world would be a “nightmare” for customs officials, among other challenges.
“I feel a little comforted, and the government doesn’t know what it is entering,” Alden said.
