It is an axiom heard countless times in business school lecture halls and on corporate earnings calls: Uncertainty is bad for business. The U.S. economy is about to test that proposition like never before. The first weeks of the second Trump administration have been a dizzying whirlwind of economic policy moves: A spending freeze was declared, then rescinded. Federal programs, …
Read More »Tag Archives: International Trade and World Market
What to Know About VAT, the Tax System Used in Europe That Trump Despises
President Trump on Thursday ordered his advisers to determine new tariff rates on America’s trading partners, a move that he said would “correct longstanding imbalances in international trade.” As part of his plan, Mr. Trump has taken aim at the value-added tax, a system used widely in Europe and elsewhere to tax the consumption of goods and services. The president …
Read More »Trump Pushes Tariff Threats on Global Scale
President Trump is pursuing a far more aggressive trade policy than he embraced in his first term, allowing his unfettered instincts about how to put America at the forefront to guide him with little pretense of investigations or extended deliberations. Since taking office, Mr. Trump has threatened punishing tariffs on goods from every global trading partner. That includes proposals to …
Read More »Whiskey Offers Window Into the Pain of a Trade War
Liquor lobbyists gathered in a ritzy private club on a recent rainy evening in Brussels to swill cocktails with names like “Toasts Not Tariffs” and fret over the potential disaster confronting their industry. Again. Seven years ago, the spirits industry found itself a casualty in a worldwide trade war as President Trump unleashed tariffs on America’s partners. The European Union …
Read More »Where China’s Exports Begin: Inside the Vast Markets of Guangzhou
Rows of white concrete buildings near the Pearl River in southern China house one of the world’s fastest-growing industries: Gritty workshops are churning out inexpensive clothing that is exported straight to homes and small businesses around the world. No tariffs are paid, and no customs inspections are conducted. The laborers who make these goods earn as little as $5 an …
Read More »Trump Announces ‘Reciprocal’ Tariffs Across the Globe
President Trump signed a memorandum on Thursday ordering his advisers to calculate new tariff levels for other countries globally, an ambitious task that will shatter the rules of the global trading system and likely set off furious negotiations in the coming months. The president directed his advisers to come up with new tariff levels that take into account a range …
Read More »Steel and Aluminum Tariffs May Raise US Manufacturing Costs
America has seen this movie before: President Trump, who imposed stiff tariffs on Monday on imported steel and aluminum, did so once before, in 2018. So domestic industries have a pretty good idea of how the story ends. Manufacturers of trucks, appliances and construction equipment scramble to find U.S. sources of metal inputs, keeping steel and aluminum producers busier than …
Read More »Trump’s Tariffs on Steel and Aluminum Re-Up Contentious First-Term Policies
President Trump is poised to move forward with sweeping tariffs on foreign steel and aluminum on Monday, re-upping a policy from his first term that pleased domestic metal makers, but hurt other American industries and ignited trade wars with allies on multiple fronts. The 25 percent tariffs that the president said he would impose on foreign steel and aluminum will …
Read More »A Trade War Is on Hold, but Trump’s Motives and a Fix Remain Uncertain
When I returned to Windsor, Ontario, the day before President Trump was set to impose potentially devastating tariffs on exports from Canada, fear was the city’s prevailing mood. A week later, following Mr. Trump’s suspension of a 25 percent tariff on most exports and 10 percent on oil, the mood has shifted more toward anger and the nation’s focus has …
Read More »Trump Allows Low-Cost Chinese Products to Enter U.S. Without Tariffs, for Now
President Trump signed an executive order on Friday that will temporarily allow low-cost products from China to continue coming into the United States tariff-free. The order reverses, at least for now, a decision that he made last Saturday, when he signed an executive order eliminating so-called de minimis treatment for goods from China. The de minimis rule had allowed products …
Read More »