This article talks about the first of many deals that Trump's administration is trying to seal relating international trade. It started when he decided to impose tariffs on steel and aluminum, which at first would benefit local producers. Now he has decided to use these tariffs in order to have leverage over other countries while negotiating trade deals. It seems like the planned worked with South Korea, and the US is going to be benefited with the deal because now they will be able to increase exports of cars to South Korea. But this does not mean that every country is going to react the same way because some might not like the fact that the US is trying to take advantage of them, and their answer could be to impose tariffs in US products instead. Only with time, the repercussions of this trade war will be able to be analyzed, and it would be interesting to know if it actually benefits the US. So far it seems like it has but there is a long way to go.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/26/business/south-korea-us-tariffs.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=first-column-region®ion=top-news&WT.nav=top-news
1 comment:
In a way, I think this is good because any influence exerted in East Asia indirectly strengthens the position of the US compared to China. However, I worry about the reliance on the necessity for such a strong threat (the steel and aluminum tariffs which we already know will most likely hurt the US), and relying on the already very strong alliance with South Korea that allows this to work without backlash. As you said, not every country will be as receptive to threats from the US and might retaliate -- alternatively, even if a state is receptive because of a strong alliance, the threat of tariffs will only work so many times before the international community refers the US to the WTO or voluntarily reduces their reliance on American products as to protect themselves.
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