Donald Trump is Wrong About Tariffs on Communist Chinese Imports

First, some credit where it’s due: Donald Trump hit the nail on the head regarding the Chinese Communist Party and its Korean colony in last night’s debate (transcript via WaPo).

China, they don’t like to tell us but they have total control — just about, of North Korea. They can solve the problem of North Korea if they wanted to but they taunt us.

Far too many pundits and politicians either don’t know or deliberately ignore this, despite the fact that the CCP itself describes its alliance with the Kim Jong-un regime to be “as close as lips and teeth.” Unfortunately, Trump proceeded to go off the rails by calling for a 45% tariff on imports from Communist China.

To be fair, support for increased tariffs on Communist Chinese goods is a widely held position – one I myself shared for many years, as the Communist Chinese Party has repeatedly shown itself to be hostile to American interests (geopolitically), American beliefs (in their appalling treatment of their own people), and Americans themselves (the CCP has long been an ally and enabler of anti-American terrorists I came to realize my mistake, however, and perhaps by retracing my steps, I can better explain why Trump is mistaken here.

For starters, most who support higher tariffs on Communist Chinese goods assume it will help the American economy recover industries and jobs “lost” across the Pacific. The global economy just isn’t that simple, and in fact, it never was. Senator Rubio (who I’ll admit is my preferred choice for the Republican nomination) addressed one concern – namely, who actually pays the tariff (same transcript link).

We are all frustrated with what China is doing. I think we need to be very careful with tariffs, and here’s why. China doesn’t pay the tariff, the buyer pays the tariff. If you send a tie or a shirt made in China into the United States and an American goes to buy it at the store and there’s a tariff on it, it gets passed on in the price to price to the consumer. So I think the better approach, the best thing we can do to protect ourselves against China economically is to make our economy stronger, which means reversing course from all the damage Barack Obama is doing to this economy.

That didn’t satisfy Trump, of course, who insisted that such an approach “takes too long.” Indeed, it is an indirect approach. However, he also leaves out that his approach is also indirect, in that it assumes consumers would avoid higher prices on Communist Chinese imports by buying American goods, and thus increasing American employment via higher demand for American goods. One could argue that Rubio’s approach is actually more direct.

More importantly, Americans can just as easily purchase imports from outside Communist China, thus weakening Trump’s argument further (and strengthening Rubio’s). In the past, ironically, this was one of my arguments for higher tariffs on Communist Chinese goods – I would prefer we import more from our democratic allies in Asia (and elsewhere) than from the Communist Chinese regime. Higher tariffs on Communist Chinese imports could achieve that.

However, there is a better way to achieve that, one that doesn’t bring collateral damage to the consumer: namely, lowering tariffs on goods from our democratic allies. This would increase Communist Chinese goods’ prices in relative terms (and thus provide the same incentive for consumers to avoid them), without raising them in absolute terms.

This is where Trump’s position, and his worldview, fails. His refusal to support the Trans-Pacific Partnership (which would lower tariffs with numerous East Asian allies) shows his position on Communist China is more about 19th century mercantilism than about modern geopolitical concerns. I’m all for America acknowledging that we’re in a cold war with Zhongnanhai, but the American consumer should be spared Trump’s friendly fire.

Сейчас уже никто не берёт классический кредит, приходя в отделение банка. Это уже в далёком прошлом. Одним из главных достижений прогресса является возможность получать кредиты онлайн, что очень удобно и практично, а также выгодно кредиторам, так как теперь они могут ссудить деньги даже тем, у кого рядом нет филиала их организации, но есть интернет. http://credit-n.ru/zaymyi.html - это один из сайтов, где заёмщики могут заполнить заявку на получение кредита или микрозайма онлайн. Посетите его и оцените удобство взаимодействия с банками и мфо через сеть.