Sorting Out All These Tariffs: Are We Having a Trade War Yet?

Tariffs are making headlines just about every day now, but it ’s often not clear which stories are aboutthreats of tariffs, and which are aboutactual tariffs that will be applied. Back on March 8, President Trump announced that he would impose tariffs on imports ofsteel (25%) andaluminum (10%), but also noted that Canada and Mexico would be exempt and there was going to be a 15 day period to talk about exemptions for other countries (as well as specific product exclusions). Other countries complained that the purported justification for the tariffs, national security, had no basis , and the EUthreatened retaliatory tariffs.That 15 days was up today, but before we get to that, yesterday President Trumpwas threatening more tariffs, this time  only against China, for various practices – e.g., alleged forced technology transfers and a failure to safeguard intellectual property rights – that it has engaged in over the years. TheWall Street Journal described yesterday’s action this way:The White House is putting together a package of 25% tariffs on Chinese imports, and Mr. Trump ’s advisers said they had targeted 1,300 product categories. The president said that action could affect imports of “about $60 billion,” but his advisers, speaking earlier, said that it was more likely to be $50 billion, or roughly 10% of the more than $500 billion the U.S. imported from China last year.The administration says it will publish a formal list of proposed tariffs in 15 days. ...

Source: Cato-at-liberty - March 23, 2018 Category: American Health Authors: Simon Lester Source Type: blogs