US President Donald Trump has dubbed April 2 as “Liberation Day,” in honor of his announcement of the largest tariffs to date against several nations, which he has labeled “reciprocal tariffs”. Trump unveiled his broad list of tariffs in the Rose Garden of the White House against over 100 countries but notably excluding Canada and Mexico. Following his announcement, Trump left without answering questions from reporters.
This latest set of tariffs includes:
- An extra 34% tariff on imports China, bringing the total tariff rate on Chinese imports to 54%
- 20% tariff on imports from the European Union
- 24% tariff on imports from Japan
- 26% tariff on imports from India
- 26% tariff on imports from South Korea
- 37% tariff on imports from Bangladesh
- 44% tariff on imports from Sri Lanka
- Minimum 10% tariff on imports from all countries
Economists largely agree that tariffs are likely to raise prices on goods and services across the world, hitting lower income workers the most, who use a larger share of their income on purchases of basic commodities. As stated in an analysis by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP), “lower- and middle-income families must spend a larger share of their earnings to make ends meet”, thus any increase “would have a particularly noticeable impact on their household budgets.”
“The working class in the US will be the ones to suffer most as these measures will inevitably lead to higher inflation as wages continue to fall,” Roger McKenzie, the international editor of the left-wing UK newspaper Morning Star, told Peoples Dispatch. According to McKenzie, “this will force more countries to reorient their economies to trade more with each other rather than the US,” with a move to trade with China, especially, as “more nations are likely to be attracted to its stability rather than the chaos of the US.”
“Donald Trump and his supporters claim that tariffs against China will bring back US manufacturing, but this is a delusion,” said analyst Amanda Yee, who hosts “The China Report” on BreakThrough News. “Rebuilding industrial capacity in the US would require decades, an actual industrial policy, and massive government investment. The Trump administration is not willing to make that kind of investment, so the tariffs are not going to work.”
“Trump has also stated that the trillions of dollars in revenue from these sweeping tariffs would offset some of the tax cuts he promised on the campaign trail,” Yee told Peoples Dispatch. “These tax cuts, of course, only benefit the wealthy and major corporations. What we are seeing is another Trump policy which is really a thinly veiled massive transfer of wealth from poor and working people to his billionaire circle.”
Leveling the playing field?
Trump has argued that the tariffs are “reciprocal,” arguing that the tariffs that other nations impose on US goods are “unfair”.
“Our country and its taxpayers have been ripped off for more than fifty years, but it is not going to happen anymore,” the US president said during his speech in the Rose Garden. However, the relatively high tariff rate charged to the US by other nations was the result of long negotiations between the US and over 100 countries which took place from 1986 to 1994, called the Uruguay Round, which led to the creation of the World Trade Organization (WTO).
Marc Botenga, a Member of European Parliament with the Workers’ Party of Belgium, says that, “Trump and his far-right government are declaring a trade war on the rest of the world.” According to Botenga, “Although [Trump] promised to lower prices, they are likely to increase for all workers, in the United States and elsewhere.”
In response to Trump’s claims on Wednesday that “for decades, our country has been looted, pillaged, and plundered by nations near and far, both friend and foe alike,” Botenga says “if there is one country that has looted, pillaged and plundered the peoples of the world for decades, it is the United States.”
Botenga continues, “the theft of oil in the Middle East, the 4.5 million deaths resulting from US wars since 2001, a third of countries under US sanctions, unequal trade treaties, cheap raw materials. And European governments have often been complicit in these ‘Made in USA’ crimes.”
