According to the Washington Post, former US President Donald Trump has told advisers that if he wins this year’s election, he intends to put a 60% tariff on all Chinese imports.
According to analysts from both the Democratic and Republican parties, the proposal would cause significant disruptions in the United States and other economies across the world, far outweighing the impact of Trump’s trade conflicts during his first presidential term.
During his current presidential campaign, Donald Trump has promised to withdraw China’s position as a “most favoured nation” for trade. The classification is applied to practically all nations the US trades with, and the White House can impose any duties on imports.
According to the GOP front-runner, tariffs on foreign goods raise vital revenue for the US budget, and current import levies are among the world’s lowest.
China is the US’s third largest trading partner after Mexico and Canada. In November, Beijing accounted for 11.7% of total US foreign trade.
According to specialists polled by the newspaper, such proposals, if carried out, are likely to start a worldwide trade war.
“The 2018–2019 trade war was immensely damaging, and this would go so far beyond that it’s hard to even compare to that,” Erica York, senior economist at the Tax Foundation, a right-leaning think tank that opposes the tariffs, told the Washington Post. “This threatens to upend and fragment global trade to an extent we haven’t seen in centuries.”
“If a Trump administration were to put up much higher tariffs on imports from China, American companies would lose most of their market share in both China and many third countries,” Posen said, describing the measures as “lunacy.”
