Trump on Wednesday appeared to open the door to significantly expanding his plans to impose sweeping new tariffs if he returns to office, suggesting an escalation in proposals that many experts already see as likely to cause a global trade war.
“We’re going to have 10 to 20 percent tariffs on foreign countries that have been ripping us off for years,” Trump said Wednesday.
“We’re going to charge them 10 to 20 percent to come in and take advantage of our country.”
The Trump campaign sought to play down the significance of the comment and said the former president did not specify that the 20 percent tariff would apply to all nations.
A 10 percent universal tariff, coupled with a tariff of as much as 60 percent on China that Trump has also eyed, would cost a typical middle-income household roughly $1,700 per year, according to the Peterson Institute for International Economics, a pro-trade Washington-based think tank.
Doubling that would increase its costs to U.S. households, while probably doing more to shield domestic producers from foreign competition.
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Hold on. It's not an entirely whacko idea (though 10% is absurd). An across-the-board tariff on imports is basically a national sales tax. As long as the tariffs are phased in, the funds are used to offset lowering of taxes, and industry is deregulated (reducing barriers to market entry), then I think there could be a net-positive impact on our economy. But we must tread carefully lest we repeat the follies of the early 20th century.
@SteadfastTwoPartyGreen2yrs2Y
Tariffs in the 1970s on foreign autos allowed domestic producers to turn out inferior cars requiring more frequent maintenance and had a lot lower useful life. It gave domestic automakers a captive market allowing them to ignore new technologies foreign makers were putting into their cars at that time. Tariffs create a laziness in corporate America that results in inferior new product development.
I watched Trump's speech on CSPAN here in Asheville a few miles from the venue. It was a hallucinogenic rant of about everything but a coherent economic policy with evidence of how he would implement it.
@Madeline1208 2yrs2Y
does he realize that the majority of goods in the US are imported?
@Mellow1972Libertarian2yrs2Y
US trade deficit under Trump went up 100B$/year.
Our country was built on free trade.
@JackalJayDemocrat2yrs2Y
Hey all you Trump MAGA dolts get ready for the highest inflation in American history if serial draft dodger and serial adulterer Trump were to get elected president.
@ISIDEWITH2yrs2Y
The last three years has only reinforced that there was a lot that Trump was right about.
@ISIDEWITH2yrs2Y
@ISIDEWITH2yrs2Y
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