Trump's China Tariffs Boomerang on America
Thanks to trade wars, companies are skimping on new U.S. plants and equipment.
Who’s hurting whom?
Photographer: Mario Tama/Getty Images
As resilient as the U.S. is with unemployment at a 50-year low of 3.5% and personal income up 15% since 2017, cracks are widening in the longest expansion in modern times. Deteriorating business investment, manufacturing, shipping, trucking, logistics and the historically robust trade surplus can all be attributed to the tariffs threatened and imposed by Donald Trump since he became president.
Trump protectionism initially included tariffs of 25% and 10% on steel and aluminum, prompting retaliatory penalties from China, the European Union, Mexico and Canada. Almost everything Americans now buy from China is penalized or targeted for tariffs.