Although President Trump's tariffs have been largely reported as a trade war between China, Canada and Europe have suffered the worst losses. Examining Trump's tariffs, $12 billion in Canadian exports have been targeted, $8 billion in European exports while the tariffs only target $3.5 billion of China's.
I do not believe that President Trump's actions towards our neighbors and allies are a smart or diplomatic decision. Not only is Trump engaging with a trade war with China, but he has damaged trade relations with some of our most important allies. Canada is the US' second largest trade partner and the largest market for US exports, while Mexico is our third largest trade partner. Trump's tariffs against them will force them to respond in kind which will only harm more Americans. However, most alarming is the rhetoric and language Trump and his administration has used against our allies such as the president's trade advisor Peter Navarro saying that "there is a special place in hell" for Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. The United States' position in global affairs has weakened and will continue to weaken if attack our allies and burn important relationships established over the years.
https://www.economist.com/democracy-in-america/2018/10/15/trade-and-immigration-have-never-been-so-popular-in-america
https://www.vox.com/world/2018/5/31/17413172/trump-tariff-steel-aluminum-eu-canada-mexico
https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/8/5/17653632/trump-tariffs-trade-war-steel\
https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/06/12/the-west-will-die-so-that-trump-can-win/
6 comments:
I agree that Donald Trump's disconnect with the international community is a big issue, and should be given more of a focus. Instead the republicans have chosen to focus on immigration and the democrats on healthcare. Trump has not brought winnings for America with his tariffs, including these new sanctions on Iran, because in part because other nations care deeply about the optics of backing down because of them. The economy is still on an upward trend despite our current trajectory, so its hard to convince voters that these trade policies are only serving to limit our markets and harm businesses that relied on international trade in the long run.
The tariffs just makes life harder for the American people. Especially as e-commerce grows, a larger amount of goods are directly shipped from China to the consumer. When shipping small items from China to the US is often cheap or free, Trump adding a tariff to the shipping fees will greatly affect us. Almost everything I buy online from China is something that I cannot access either through Amazon or a brick and mortar store here in the US, so my purchases would not be directly supporting the American economy anyways.
https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2018/10/trump-changes-terminal-dues-and-epacket-rates/573337/
In my opinion, Trump's "trade war" is completely ridiculous. In addition to his failure to condemn the alt-right, and his dismissal of Russian interference in the 2016 election, Trump's trade war is becoming one of his greatest mistakes. Ultimately, this trade war is only harming the U.S economy. We are already seeing the consequences of Trump's irrational policies.
https://www.axios.com/us-soybean-china-94-percent-trump-trade-war-7771075e-bfb5-4ef2-aae1-c51c5d64331c.html
Furthermore, the situation is only aggravated by the communication of Trump's administration, as apparent by this article from CNBC.
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/10/14/chinas-us-ambassador-says-trumps-team-is-very-confusing.html
Trumps plans for the "trade war" and a constant add of tariffs are completely useless when trying to benefit the U.S. Many of the U.S. materials that are sold are made in China. If we continue to add tariffs on the shipping it will only cause a negative affect and we will eventually lose our trade partners. With the U.S. today our constant focus on polictics is with immigration and Trump, rather than focusing on this big issue as well, because while we continue to ignore, we do not realize that we are going losing a lot of our materials from trading. I believe that Trump should do things that will quickly be put into effect before we lose too much in Trump's trade war.
I do not believe that Trump's decisions are wise either, going through with the trade war and cutting off our allies like Canada and China is going to have a huge effect on our economy. Since we are benefitting from many products and materials coming from other countries especially China, if we add more tariffs, we will continue to lose and have a negative affect on our economy.
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