Monday, April 3, 2017

Trump Talks Tough on U.S.-China Trade but Delays Real Action

This article talks about how President Trump has been calling for stricter enforcement of tariffs imposed in anti-dumping and anti-subsidy trading, but with no real actions. It seems like all the talks on twitter is just a way for giving the administration officials more time to come up with a trade policy that works. President Trump believes that the trade deficit between the U.S. and China "was fed by Chinese currency manipulation, government subsidies to exporters and other directives". However, his executive order doesn't really address the problems. President Trump wants to ensure to collect the tariffs imposed in anti-dumping and anti-subsidy. Then the article discusses border-adjusted tax which is a tax essentially imposed on goods from other countries. It's interesting to see if the Trump administration will set the main priority on trade be a border-adjusted tax as part of tax reform or the priority be a "long series of narrow, industry-specific trade disputes". I personally think that the U.S. will have more success in improving the competitiveness of companies overseas by supporting worker training, encouraging industrial upgrading, and investing in research and development.


Link to article: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/31/business/trump-trade-executive-orders.html?ref=business&_r=0

3 comments:

Unknown said...

Given the Trump administration's recent failure in the realm of healthcare and, generally speaking, low overall approval rating I would surprised to see him make any major moves in regards to imposing a so-called "border tax" on China. It seems more likely that he'll focus on trying to implement a more business-friendly tax plan domestically before turning outward.

Unknown said...

I agree with Yingling, as the Trump administration is reluctant to invest in education and innovation they could use the brain power of workers abroad and would increase market competitiveness. However, judging by the near-zero credibility Trump's administration has had in the economic community since they've held office, I don't see the US successfully negotiating any hard-line agreement with China. Trump so far has not proved to achieve anything or signed any "executive orders" which shed some light towards boosting and protecting the US economy. Our economy heavily relies on Chinese imports, to implement a border tax on China would inherently hurt our economy and cause a significant increase in prices domestically.

Unknown said...

I agree with Khadija, implementing a border tax on China, and really on any country that we import from, will definitely hurt our economy. This would mean that prices for such products will increase, therefore, the consumer will be affected by this tax. I know that this is an incentive to bring jobs back to the U.S, but the reason why we manufacture outside of the U.S is because it is less expensive.