As threatened, President Trump allowed a 25 percent tax on
$200 billion of Chinese imports to go into effect today. The increase in
tariffs, which is another name for taxes on international trade, took effect despite
the fact that US and Chinese negotiators are still conducting trade talks. China
says that it will retaliate for the tax increase but has not yet announced what
measures it will take.
In a tweetstorm
this morning, the president played it cool, saying, “Talks with China continue
in a very congenial manner - there is absolutely no need to rush - as Tariffs
are NOW being paid to the United States by China of 25% on 250 Billion Dollars [sic]
worth of goods & products.”
Of course, the president once again misses the fact that
China is not paying his tariffs. Americans are. As with a sales tax, which is
ostensibly levied on retailers, the actual cost of the tax is borne by American
consumers and companies. When consumers buy Chinese products or companies
import raw materials, the tariff is added to the cost of their purchase.
Even if consumers choose to buy domestic products instead,
the effect is the same. They pay higher costs due to decreased competition.
Either way, consumers have fewer dollars left in their pockets.
Trump’s tweetstorm
continues as he shows his plan for big government interference in markets to
plan out the new economy. “With the over 100 Billion Dollars in Tariffs that we
take in, we will buy agricultural products from our Great Farmers, in larger
amounts than China ever did, and ship it to poor & starving countries in
the form of humanitarian assistance,” he writes.
What President Trump is proposing is a massive intervention in markets that
results in both a subsidy to farmers and, in a sudden reversal, increased foreign
aid.
Trump’s proposal combines a number of typically Democrat
ideas. The president is proposing a transfer of wealth from American consumers
and businesses to farmers. This wealth transfer will supposedly undo the damage
to farmers that Trump’s own trade policies are wreaking. Then, since the US
government has no real need of all the food that it is going to buy at taxpayer
expense to prop up farmers who can’t sell to China because of Trump’s tariff war,
the government is simply going to give the food away. In one series of tweets,
we have a tax increase, transfer payments, a government expansion, increased government
spending, government subsidies, government handouts, and expansion of executive
authority.
Ironically, Trump’s tax increases on trade came on the heels
of tax reform. The average tax cut for the middle fifth of wage earners was
estimated to be only about $1,000 annually
so it’s likely that Trump’s tax increases on imports will eat up the middle-class
tax cut and then some.
Republicans inherently understand that income tax cuts on
businesses and individuals put more money in their pockets, but the party is a
bit schizophrenic when it comes to taxes on trade. Many Republicans deny that
tariffs are taxes at all while others somehow take on the progressive view that
tariffs can somehow tax America into prosperity.
The great economist Milton Friedman explained that this
mistaken view is due to the fact that the jobs protected by tariffs are easily
visible but the jobs and businesses killed by trade taxes are often hidden from
view because these losses occur in other parts of the economy. (Milton Friedman’s
interview with Phil Donohue is available on YouTube and is an
entertaining and informative lesson on trade economics. It’s well worth the
time it takes to watch it. Donohue, a famous liberal of the day, sounds a lot like
Trump today.)
With today’s internet news sources, the hidden damage done
by protective tariffs is more apparent than ever. America’s farmers have been among
the hardest hit by the trade war with farm income dropping so drastically since
Trump’s election that it weighed down personal income growth for the entire
country. This was despite a $12
billion farm subsidy passed last year to bail out farmers from the trade
war damage.
The damage from tariffs doesn’t stop with farmers, however. A
number of companies, such as Harley
Davidson, have moved production outside the United States to escape the
tariff war. Earlier this week, Polaris
announced that it would consider moving production of its recreational vehicles
from Minnesota to Mexico if Trump followed through on more tariffs. Because the
tax increases on steel imports make manufacturing more expensive, companies
such as Mid
Continent Nail of Missouri are losing money and on the verge of bankruptcy.
Of course, trade wars hurt both sides. Trump’s obvious
strategy is to wage a war of attrition against China in the hopes that the US
economy can stave off disaster longer than the Chinese economy. A possible
miscalculation here is that the US is a mostly free nation and China is authoritarian.
Chinese leaders don’t have to wait until the US economy crumbles, they only
have to wait until unhappy voters send President Trump the message, “You’re
fired,” next year. It’s unlikely that any candidate other than Bernie Sanders
would continue Trump’s trade policies.
Trump also faces potential resistance from Congress and the
courts. Trump’s initial tariffs on steel and aluminum were based on
questionable national security determinations, but his authority to apply
tariffs to other imports is even more uncertain. A US
trade court upheld the steel tariffs earlier this year but similar suits
based on his other tariffs may be more successful. Even congressional Republicans
are speaking out against the trade war and there may be an attempt to tie
ratification of Trump’s new trade deal with Mexico and Canada to repeal of the tariffs.
So far, markets have been remarkably stable in the face of
the looming escalations in the trade war. “Investors seemingly continue to try
to cling to hope that policymakers on both sides opt to deescalate,” Deutsche
Bank's research strategist Jim Reid said on CNBC.
As tariffs increase and profits fall, markets will react sooner or later.
President Trump is betting his reelection on his statement
from two years ago at the onset of the trade war. As prices rise and exports
fall, Mr. Trump is doubling down on his mistaken belief that, “Trade wars
are good and easy to win.”
Neither of those beliefs seems to have held true.
Originally published
on The
Resurgent
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