Trump Trade Wars Are Harming Americans - Here's Some Examples

We at Smart Dissent and all of you have known every step of the way that Trump's trade wars were a significant drain on our people and the GOP tax scam was benefitting only corporations, not us.  When we started to do more research on the impacts to write this post, we found something shocking: even the ultra right wing Heritage Foundation has numerous posts crushing Trump for his trade war.  Now that's saying something!

Here's the only time we're ever going to quote those clowns on Smart Dissent:

Despite the claims of long-term gain following this dispute, the real story is that long-term damage is imminent. This is the case not only for farmers and manufacturers, however, because ultimately individual Americans foot the bill for higher tariffs.

According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, “U.S. soybean outstanding sales are below last year, owing to fewer sales to China, which are currently 85 percent below last season.

Supporters of the current dispute with China claim that farmers can just export more soybeans to other markets.... The data do not support this assumption. 

Losses in sales or market share today can mean big trouble in future years if these relationships are lost to competitors.

Anyway, now back to reputable sources who point out the when tariffs harm other countries and stymie global growth, that comes back to haunt us

“When you have the world’s two largest economies at odds, that’s a situation where everyone suffers,” Maurice Obstfeld, the IMF’s chief economist, told reporters on Tuesday. He added that global growth could further drop “close to a percentage [point]” if the trade war continues.

Trump's desire to improve trade deals for America’s benefit may be harming the world’s economy in the long run.   That could present a problem for the US as well, since it relies on foreign countries for many of its goods. If other countries start to experience economic slowdowns of their own, the US will likely have more difficulty doing business with them.

 IMF also projected that Trump’s trade war will hurt America’s economy, dropping growth to 2.5 percent as opposed to the previous 2.9 percent estimation.

We the people pay for the tariffs.  Tariffs are taxes on all of us.

Trump's rapidly escalating trade war with China,,,, on $500 billion of goods from our top trading partner. That’s about everything we buy from the country.  There are more than 6,000 items in the crossfire. The vast list includes microwaves, trout, cashews, perfume, baseball gloves and toilet paper. Trump’s tariffs begin at 10 percent and are expected to climb to 25 percent in 2019. 

U.S. retailers are expected to pass the cost of these levies on to consumers in the form of price hikes.  ”Customers will face cost increases for essential items like car seats, cribs, backpacks, hats, pet products and bicycles,” Walmart warned.... 

There is going to be a very abrupt change in pricing.  Consumers will have few ways to defend against the pain of higher prices, experts say.

While the GOP tax scam was an enormous handout to corporations, many of them are furious about Trump's economic policies otherwise because its simply chaos.  We don't need to feel bad for them but we should recognize the impact it has on the costs of our goods and the number of available jobs.

....the unpredictability of many of Mr. Trump’s proposals — the lack of clarity on when or how Nafta might be renegotiated; the risk of potential litigation over his rollback of auto-pollution rules; the ways in which other countries might retaliate against Mr. Trump’s tariffs — seeds confusion across the American economy, making it tough for businesses to plan effectively for the future.

“That just wreaks havoc with American farmers and businesses with the investments they have to make,” said Matthew Slaughter, a professor of international business at Dartmouth College. “It creates massive uncertainty for these industries.”

For example:

-Trump has sought to follow through on campaign promises to help the coal industry, but those efforts are angering oil and natural gas producers.  Oil and gas companies say a Trump administration proposal to bail out the coal industry will cut into their market share, while steel tariffs make their production equipment costlier. 

-Executives and lobbyists from the nation’s Big Three auto companies have held a flurry of meetings at the White House and E.P.A., asking Mr. Trump and his officials not to move forward with the aggressive rollback of the pollution rules and instead to hammer out a deal with California....

-The Aluminum Association, which represents the bulk of the American industry, says that 97 percent of American jobs in aluminum are at what are called “downstream” businesses that shape the metal into things like auto parts or other goods. Those companies are hurt by Mr. Trump’s tariffs, because they must now pay higher prices for their raw materials.

More suffering to come.....

Sources:

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/04/climate/trump-industry-policy-consequences.html

https://www.heritage.org/trade/commentary/trumps-trade-war-causing-long-term-damage

https://www.vox.com/2018/10/9/17955106/imf-economy-trump-trade-war-growth

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/10/04/tips-on-saving-money-if-tariffs-push-up-prices.html

https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-tariffs-make-coca-cola-gm-more-expensive-2018-8