President Donald Trump is perpetually convinced that he is right and he refuses to hear out many arguments otherwise. This Thursday, as the federal government continued to languish under the weight of a partial shutdown, he took to touting his trade policy, which has included harsh tariffs on nations all around the world.
He ranted:
‘The United States Treasury has taken in MANY billions of dollars from the Tariffs we are charging China and other countries that have not treated us fairly. In the meantime we are doing well in various Trade Negotiations currently going on. At some point this had to be done!’
Yet again, his take proves a remarkably short-sighted view of the realities of the situation.
While the United States has imposed tariffs on imported goods from China, the European Union, Canada and beyond, those added costs have translated to burdens on the American worker and consumer. If an American company uses imported steel to craft any number of items, and all of a sudden that steel sees its cost go up, who’s going to bear the burden?
How does Trump not get how Americans shoulder much of the weight of added costs to import goods into the United States?
That doesn’t even cover the retaliatory tariffs that other countries impose as an even further weight on American business. For American farmers and workers in a variety of homegrown industries, it’s suddenly become more costly to do business overseas, and there have been estimates of the subsequent losses in the hundreds of millions to billions.
The most high profile trade negotiations currently proceeding to attempt to put an end to Trump’s trade wars involve China. Late last year, after months of tariffs and retaliatory tariffs went back and forth, the president announced a 90 day “cease fire” with China in which time the respective countries would seek to achieve a more lasting agreement.
Trump has previously claimed positive developments on that front — like that China had agreed to purchase… some American goods — but those claims eventually proved to be nonsense, and there’s little reason to take his words at face value now.
Featured Image via YouTube screenshot
