Well, maybe. Who the hell knows what he’ll do. Anyway, tariffs are back to 30% on China and 10% on America.
This is exactly what China demanded, for tariffs to go back to what they were before April 2nd.
There will still be a two month trade burp. Ships weren’t leaving China for the US at all, literally zero. Lot of freight companies are about to make a mint, though. So expect some shortages, but nothing worse than Covid, and hopefully lasting less time.
The fundamental problem remains, however, which is that there’s no certainty around any of this, so business people can’t make long term plans, including plans to build or relocate manufacturing. Trump and the US can’t be trusted to stay steady on policy, so avoiding making big plans involving the US makes sense.
The Great Power picture is clearer, however. The US tried to impose its will on China and failed. China wouldn’t negotiate till its pre-conditions were met. The world has two great powers, with the EU bidding to become the third (I think they’ll fail, but that’s what the rearmament is about.)
And, in economic terms, China is by far the pre-eminent great power. It isn’t even close. The era of American hegemony is officially over. The US tried to impose its will on the world and failed.
Larry
Such a quick failure too. It does seem to mostly boil down to Trump enriching himself in these “deals”. Is he just trying to get TikTok still? It’s so pathetic and deeply damaging American business, especially smaller ones, in the process. The WSJ ran a very good piece on how this is hammering small business owners who have the least ability to absorb these absurd fluctuations:
https://www.wsj.com/business/entrepreneurship/small-business-tariffs-e6dfaccb?st=BTHPSs&reflink=mobilewebshare_permalink
The Heretic
‘The sight of one swallow does not make for a summer. ‘
We need repeat of this activity for confirmation
different clue
Homeless Americans probably don’t care about American hegemony. If they didn’t benefit from it while it was here, they won’t miss it when its gone.
How about the vastly huger population of one-paycheck-away-from-homelessness Americans? Will they try to comfort themselves in the mental mud wallow of hegemostalgia? ( hegenostalgia? hegemonostalgia? how does one spell that?) If so, for how many years to come? Could candidate Vance sail to victory on a campaign of “Make America Greater Than Ever Before ( MAGTEB) ” . . . ?
And will the DemCandidate run on “restoring American Leadership” with a “Kinder Gentler Rules-Based-Order with a Smiley Face on it” ?
People who are ready to let Hegemony go will be ready to move on to Survivalism or Social Survivalism or Separate Survivalism or whatever they end up deciding to call it and deciding to make it mean.
Maybe National Survivalism. Survivalism in One Country. ” America has Stood Up!”
Isn’t it lovely to dream about?
In the meantime, I will use part of my currently on-vacation time to visit some stores I sometimes visit anyway to look at the state of the shelves. That will be my baseline observation.
KT Chong
Have to say I was surprised by this (FAKE) “trade deal”. I had thought China would want to make Americans SUFFER and Trump SWEAT before they came in with all the leverages and pressures to make America and Trump yield.
With that being said:
1. Why is everyone calling it a “trade deal”? America and China simply dialed back and went back to the previous tariff levels before Trump’s “Liberation Day”… just as China had demanded before it’s willing to start any trade talk with America. So now China is actually willing to talk to America about any “trade deal”.
2. Both China and the US rolled back their tariffs to the pre-Liberation-Day levels… BUT China is not rolling back any of its “non-tariff” retaliatory measures… especially its export bans/control on critical or rare earth minerals to the US! Those export bans and control of critical/rare earth minerals are actually the China’s more powerful trade weapons, and they stay. So China still came out ahead of this (fake) “trade deal”.