The craziest thing about all this is that Chinese exports to the US aren't even that big a part of the Chinese economy (3% or so). Sure, it'll hurt and there's multiplier effects, but the entire rest of the world is more than happy to take up the slack. So the tariffs really are the US cutting its own nose off to spite its face.
You're assuming US citizens stop buying Chinese goods, just because they got more expensive.
That's unlikely to be true. They might buy less, but the numbers won't fall to zero.
It also overlooks the detail that the component parts of items "made in the usa" also come from other places. Clothing made in the US, doesn't necessarily use fabric made in the US.
In the short to medium term, the increased cash-flow requirements (tarrifs are paid before sales) will favor large importers with access to abundant cash over smaller importers.
Yes, the purchasing power of US consumers will go down as retail prices of goods go up. Yes global producers will seek out alternate markets.
The current uncertainty causes US purchasing to prefer not to commit to long-term orders. Global suppliers will prefer orders from stable customers, even at somewhat lower prices. Once those long-term contracts are in place, it may be hard to reenter the global marketplace, especially on the currently favorable terms.
In other words tarifs are doing long-term reputational damage that will not be easily undone in a few years time.
On the up side the world is about to observe, for the first time in a couple generations, the effects of an isolationist policy. It is a valuable lesson that needs to be reinforced from time to time.
We're on the same side of the argument here? Obviously that 3% is not going to go down to 0%, which means that the US has even less leverage against the Chinese than it looks.
I agree. Plus, as alternate markets are developed, so that leverage drops even more.
The US has made friends with a lot of countries based on the goodwill generated by strong trade ties. That goodwill is being eroded in the short term, and will linger as a reputation for "unreliability". 80 years of work is being undone in months.
And unfortunately it won't be as simple as "in 4 years we can go back to normal ". It's obvious that congress supports this, and the American people voted for it, so it's not just one man's policy.
Besides, I don't see how a $20 shirt becoming a $30 shirt is going to make a difference for American manufacturing. It's simply a sales tax (maybe even the greatest in the world). And on top of that you have all inputs for American manufactures getting more expensive.
If China stops exporting to the US, and instead exports to somewhere else, this will crash American living standards. It will lift the living standards of the new recipient.
As an example, I'm pretty sure I just took up some of the slack here in NZ. I've been looking at installing solar for a while, and a particularly good quote for a Chinese system (Sigen) recently made me go ahead. I strongly suspect the unusually good price and fast delivery were due to cancelled US demand.
OT: Solar is awesome! 18 panels are generating 2/3 of our load, despite it being late winter. And a 16kWh battery means the grid power we import is all off-peak. In summer we're going to be exporting enough that we may even cover our winter grid import. Plus it gives us the best UPS system we've ever had, including zero-second cut-over (c.f. Tesla's half-second glitch).
When demand is reduced, you lower prices. Rest of the world suddenly are buyers. Governments can throw subsidies at impacted sectors too to cover the price difference while supply chains adjust. With growing trade relations, economies of scale and transition costs become factors. The cost of trade with the new trade relationships become cheaper and so does the reluctance to change (for example with a 3 year production pipeline baked, you don't walk away easily).
The “over time” is doing a lot of heavy lifting here. It won’t happen on anything remotely resembling a time horizon that matters for these purposes. Factories will be closed and gone by then.
If the US buys less, there will be unsold inventory and a temporary glut in supply, which will lead to the Chinese dropping prices and exporting elsewhere. This is already happening in SE Asia:
Obviously the profit margin will be less than selling to the US, but it does mean that the 3% of GDP mentioned above is not going away entirely, just shrinking to (say) 2 or 2.5%.
The article also mentions transshipment, where Chinese goods get routed to the US via a third country. Although Trump's strategy of "tariff everybody for all the things" is putting a damper on this too.
China exported something like 525 billion worth of goods last year to the US. Not all good can be replaced but let’s say something like 350 billion worth of goods are unmarketable because of the tariffs. Do you really think the whole world can’t swallow 350 billion of imports?
