Donald Trump has announced that, if he wins the 2024 elections, he will “automatically” impose a 10% tariff on all imports from the United States, regardless of the type of goods or services or their origin. The remarks by the former president, who is the overwhelming favorite of the Republican Party to run against Joe Biden for the White House, mean that if he wins, the world will be thrust into the most intense trade war since the Great Depression of the 1970s. thirties.
The United States currently imposes import tariffs of 3% on average, although in the case of China these reach 29%, according to the president of the think tank Peterson Institute for the World Economy and a former member of the Bank’s Monetary Policy Committee. from England, Adam Posen. Therefore, a “base” tariff – to use Trump’s words – would be more than a quadruple of the currently existing tariffs. The impact of such a measure on inflation would be devastating, and would most likely trigger a ‘trade war’, with other countries establishing similar measures.
None of this seems to concern Trump, who already 33 years ago, in March 1990, outlined his ideas on trade in an interview with Playboy magazine – not exactly famous for the depth of his thought – when he said that, if one day were president, the first thing he was going to do would be to “tax every Mercedes that rolls through this country.”
Trump, in his own words, had “not slept for 48 hours” when he told Playboy. But, late sleeper or not, his tariff consistency is clear. “When [foreign] companies arrive and dump their products into the United States, they should automatically pay, let’s say, a 10% tax. I want a 10% tax for everyone,” Trump declared on Thursday last week on the chain of conservative Fox Business television to commentator Larry Kudlow, who led his team of economic advisers during his presidency. The candidate has held meetings at his country club in Bedminster, New Jersey, where he resides in the summer, to discuss the issue of tariffs with his economic team.
Trump’s four economic advisers in the 2024 campaign are people who give American economists rashes. One is Kudlow himself, a former trader at the defunct Bear Sterans investment bank turned television commentator on stock market channel CNBC, where he has a formidable track record of making wrong predictions about the United States, most notably his claim that The housing market was in excellent shape as of July 2008, barely two months before the country was brought to the brink of a depression by the collapse of that sector.
The other economic policy personalities around Trump are Stephen Moore, Brooke Rollins and Newt Gingrich. Moore is a former analyst for the Trumpist think tank Heritage Foundation, which believes the Federal Reserve would have to be abolished in order for the US to adopt the gold standard. Brooke Rollins has no background in economics but worked with Trump in the White House and is, along with Kudlow, the founder of the main think tank that provides ideas to the candidate, America First Policy Institute. Finally, Gingrich is a professional politician recast as a political commentator who was Speaker of the House of Representatives from 1994-1998, and a presidential candidate in 2008.
