Chinese Goods – Latest Tariff News
President Trump told his aides to go ahead with the tariff on $200 billion worth of goods.
Let’s be clear, these are tariffs on $200 billion worth of goods, not $200 billion in tariffs like the news media sometimes reports in an effort to either be succinct or make them sound bigger than they are.
They certainly are significant because they are 4 times larger than the amount of goods under tariffs now. A deadline to impose them has passed. This is why I have said the President needs to issue them if he wants to keep his threats meaningful.
One empty threat may ruin his ability to negotiate. There is frantic scrambling to try to get something done behind the scenes.
The President met with his trade advisors who are Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin, Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, and U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer.
Steve Mnuchin is trying to restart trade talks with China. There’s no doubt President Trump was updated on what is happening. He doesn’t want to go through with this tariff because it will start to affect the economy.
On Tuesday, President Trump tweeted “we are under no pressure to make a deal with China, they are under pressure to make a deal with us.”
Chinese Goods – There is pressure on both sides to make a deal because both sides will be hurt in a trade war.
I’m amazed to see the stock market so close to an all-time high as we are on the brink of the first decent sized tariff on America’s largest trade partner.
Trump has boxed himself in a corner where he must issue this tariff in the next few weeks because he has already threatened another tariff on top of this one.
He stated earlier in September that he could tax $267 billion worth of additional goods. At this rate he will quickly run out of goods to tax. The next step would be to raise the tax rates on the goods.
The current threat is a tax rate between 5% and 25% on thousands of products such as cameras, recording devices, tires, and vacuum cleaners. China will respond with in kind tariffs.
