Tariffs and Trade Wars

By Suha Abrahim

Two days after Trump announced his retaliatory tariffs, China has responded with their own retaliatory 34% tariffs on all US products. Trumps 34% tariffs on China comes on top of the previous 20% tariffs already implemented, adding up to a total of more than 60%. Trump has declared across the board 10% reciprocal tariffs on 90 countries. The announcement of these tariffs on what he calls “Liberation Day” are needed to erase a trade deficit between the US and other countries.

Trump has announced reciprocal tariffs as high as 50%. This includes countries like Lesotho which trade very little with the US. The European union saw a rate of 20%, Japan 24%, South Korea 25%, and Taiwan 32%. These tariffs are expected to raise prices of the products consumers buy, but in the long run Trump is expecting to bring trillions of dollars of investment to the US to boost domestic manufacturing.