This past week, President Donald Trump announced that yet another round of tariffs were on the table, again proving that he preferred to take a metaphorical sledgehammer to the global economy rather than sit down for negotiations. In the face of incoming 5 percent tariffs on all imported goods from Mexico that are set to go into effect June 10, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce has revealed that it’s considering a legal challenge to the president’s latest trade move.
Their Executive Vice President and Chief Policy Officer Neil Bradley shares:
‘We have no choice but to explore every option available to push back. Because of the intense negative impact of this move, we have to consider all options: legal, congressional, etc.’
Other groups including the Business Roundtable and the National Association of Manufacturers have also denounced the newly unveiled tariffs plans. Trump has stated the tariffs are in response to the challenge of undocumented immigration over the southern U.S. border, meaning that he is again holding an unrelated portion of the U.S. system hostage over his demands for action to confront the security crisis that is not actually there.
In reality, there is a humanitarian crisis unfolding at the southern U.S. border, where an increasing number of asylum seekers continue to arrive hoping for refuge from violence in their home areas. Trump’s response to this is an attempt to push those asylum seekers someplace else via means like his long hoped-for border wall and to simultaneously penalize Americans attempting to do business with Mexico, which is one of the country’s biggest trading partners. The tariffs that Trump has announced and will gradually go up month after month through a possible height of a full 25 percent this fall will target the American interests attempting to bring goods into the country from Mexico.
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce noted this, sharing that:
‘These tariffs will be paid by American families and businesses without doing a thing to solve the very real problems at the border.’
The same issue has arisen in other contexts, like that of the Trump administration’s trade policy towards China, whose exports have also been targeted with harsh tariffs. Trump has claimed that the revenue from these tariffs is coming from China — it’s not. The tariffs are being paid by the American interests attempting to do business with the country.
In this situation, the White House shared that it essentially does not care to hear the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s concerns, which has also said it wants them and Congress to “explain the negative impact the tariffs would have on American consumers.”
White House spokesman Judd Deere shared:
‘Industry should be in communication with their counterparts in Mexico to encourage the Mexican government to work with the administration and stave off the dangerous crisis at our southern border as quickly as possible.’
In other words — while sending the global economy into a tailspin, the Trump administration remains seemingly unwilling to engage in a constructive domestic conversation about the issues they’re supposedly so concerned about.
Trump has said the tariffs will remain in place “until such time as illegal migrants coming through Mexico, and into our Country, STOP” — meaning that there’s no doubt a tense fight on the horizon.
Featured Image via screenshot
