President Donald Trump’s latest announcement of additional tariffs against China drew a sharp rebuke from the conservative-leaning Wall Street Journal this week, along with a stern economic warning.
Trump’s trade war with China has already ruined American farmers who have lost billions of dollars as China looks elsewhere for agricultural produce to purchase. In addition, manufacturing is also feeling pressure to relocate overseas as the tariffs crush them as well. One industry has even been cost 40,000 jobs because of them.
And a laundry list of companies have signed a statement urging Trump to end his trade wars and warned that he is only hurting the economy the longer he wages the trade wars he once bragged are “easy to win.”
But on Thursday, Trump announced a new 10 percent tariff on China.
…during the talks the U.S. will start, on September 1st, putting a small additional Tariff of 10% on the remaining 300 Billion Dollars of goods and products coming from China into our Country. This does not include the 250 Billion Dollars already Tariffed at 25%…
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 1, 2019
And this was the last straw for the Wall Street Journal editorial board, who trashed the move and issued a warning.
“One problem with President Trump’s China trade strategy of gradually escalating tariffs is that no one knows when or whether they’ll stop,” the editorial board wrote. “This is the third round of tariffs on China, and this time the border tax will hit consumer goods such as cellphones, laptops and tablets, clothing and toys. The stock market went in reverse on the news, but that isn’t the biggest economic risk. Bond yields also fell and oil fell nearly 8%, both warnings of slower growth in China and perhaps around the world.”
Indeed, Trump may have just sparked a recession and you know he won’t be bragging about the stock market right now.
“Mr. Trump no doubt thinks this adds to the pressure on China to capitulate in trade negotiations, but it also carries risk of a larger run on the yuan that would do further harm to the Chinese economy,” the Wall Street Journal noted.
Causing the second largest economy in the world to crash would be a major disaster that would negatively impact the United States as well, especially considering the fact that China still holds American IOUs it could call in as a last resort.
“Mr. Trump’s Thursday tweets on China were respectful and anticipated further bilateral trade talks,” the editorial said. “But the President is embarked on a high-risk coercive showdown with the world’s second-largest economy in which neither side wants to bend first. Trade wars aren’t easy, especially for the innocent economic bystanders.”
And the problem for Trump and Republicans is that those “innocent economic bystanders” vote and they know who to blame for their woes.
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