Well, now we’re going to find out. After threatening to do so for quite some time, Trump has reached his “Liberation Day” where he is going to “liberate” the United States from all of the so-called “bad deals” that Trump believes that the United States has suffered at the hands of other countries.
These tariffs are no joke.
Here, according to the New York Times, are the tariffs that Trump is imposing at midnight on April 3rd. (It would certainly have been more poetic if he had imposed them on April Fool’s Day.)
New tariffs for select countries
| Country | New tariff | Share ofU.S. imports | Trade balance |
| China | +34% | 13.4% | –$292 bil. |
| E.U. | +20% | 18.5% | –$241 bil. |
| Vietnam | +46% | 4.2% | –$123 bil. |
| Taiwan | +32% | 3.6% | –$74 bil. |
| Japan | +24% | 4.5% | –$69 bil. |
| India | +26% | 2.7% | –$46 bil. |
| South Korea | +25% | 4.0% | –$66 bil. |
| Thailand | +36% | 1.9% | –$46 bil. |
| Switzerland | +31% | 1.9% | –$39 bil. |
| Indonesia | +32% | 0.9% | –$18 bil. |
Trump keeps repeating that it will be “short-term pain for long-term gain.” But there is no reason to believe that the pain will be short-term, unless Trump loses his nerve, which wouldn’t be the first time for him and tariffs.
This would be the highest tariffs that we’ve had in a century. And yeah, what was going on a century ago. Oh yes: the Great Depression!
Trump’s supporters and acolytes are all parroting his assurances that the pain will be short term. But wasn’t this election all about the “price of eggs?”
If Trump thinks that his tariffs are going to force companies to bring manufacturing back to the United States, he really is a bigger idiot than we all feared. First of all, the threat to manufacturing (and other) jobs is not their being outsourced to China or Mexico; no, it’s the jobs being replaced by robots and artificial intelligence. Trump’s tariffs will (of course) do exactly nothing about that problem.
It’s not like manufacturers could even bring back manufacturing in time for it to make a difference for Trump. To relocate manufacturing plants takes years. And Trump — notwithstanding his fantasies about a 3rd term — will only be in office for four years. After that, who knows?
To use an analogy, in a world of diesel trains, where the next evolution is towards electric trains, Trump is insisting on trying to bring us back to steam locomotives. It’s just not going to happen.
Well, Trump supporters, this is what you wanted. Let’s see whether the reality is as pleasant as the promise of tariffs.
