Photo credit: Joyce N. Boghosian
When Donald Trump launched a “trade war” on China, many people were simply relieved our bombastic, irrational president hadn’t stumbled into a nuclear shooting war instead. They didn’t realize the victims of Trump’s trade war would be American taxpayers, consumers, farmers and manufacturing companies rather than the Chinese.
Let’s face it. When people hear talk about trade and tariffs, their minds glaze over. They know that complicated stuff is important, but really don’t understand how it all works. The terrifying part right now is the growing evidence the president of the United States doesn’t, either; either that, or Trump is intentionally lying to his own supporters who are suffering the most, and he doesn’t think they’re intelligent enough to realize it.
He issues a steady torrent of fraudulent tweets, claiming China is paying billions of dollars in tariffs into the U.S. Treasury he can use to compensate any Americans who are collateral damage. “Tariffs will bring in FAR MORE wealth to our Country than even a phenomenal [trade] deal of the traditional kind,” Trump boasted in a recent tweet.
Actually, Trump’s tariffs have not brought in any money at all from China or anywhere else outside the U.S. It’s American consumers, importers and manufacturing companies who are paying the higher prices created by all those tariffs. By the end of last year, they were paying an additional $3 billion a month, according to an economic study by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, Columbia and Princeton universities. Current estimates of additional monthly costs in the U.S. are nearly $9 billion.
Wisconsin Farmers Hit Hard
Meanwhile, the personal income of farmers in Wisconsin and around the country declined by $11.8 billion through the first three months of 2019, according to the U.S. Commerce Department, because China retaliated against Trump by discontinuing its purchase of U.S. agricultural products.
The continuing economic devastation of rural America is finally beginning to alarm Republican farm state senators, whose constituents were once Trump’s strongest supporters. “I’m not sure if you talk to him [Trump] face-to-face, he hears everything you say,” said Iowa Sen. Charles Grassley, planning to write a letter to Trump detailing farmers’ growing despair. Bad alternative. Trump doesn’t read, either.
Trump talks vaguely about creating another $15 billion welfare program for farmers similar to the $12 billion fund he set up before the midterm elections last year for farmers who’d lost much more than that in his trade war. Rightwing Republicans find themselves awkwardly increasing welfare payments for farmers while slashing them for everybody else.
It should be even more embarrassing for Republicans to support Trump’s proposal to use taxpayer funds to buy U.S. farm products and donate them to poor countries around the world. This is at the same time Trump is conspiring with Republicans to destroy funding for food assistance for poor families struggling to feed their hungry children in our own country while slamming America’s door in the faces of desperate refugees fleeing those impoverished countries abroad.
Trade Wars Are ‘Good’?
China has long bullied outside companies that want access to its massive market into accepting drastic concessions including giving up trade secrets. Trump considers himself an expert on bullying and corrupt business practices. The problem is he’s also a totally ignorant blowhard who has no idea what he’s doing. Trump proved that when he declared nearly a year ago: “Trade wars are good and easy to win.” He even started referring to himself as a cartoon superhero called (ta da!) Tariff Man.
The crazed supporters who attend his rallies used to think his clownish behavior and outrageous lies were hilarious. It’s funny until prices on all the everyday products on the shelves of Walmart—the only viable retailer remaining in many of their communities—start increasing by 25%. And forget about ever buying a washing machine or refrigerator again.
If Trump makes good on his threat to raise tariffs on all remaining Chinese imports, the cost to the average American family is expected to increase to about $2,389 a year, according to the Trade Partnership, an economic consulting firm analyzing the effect of worldwide trade policies. It also could destroy 2.2 million American jobs—this at a time when 40% of Americans say they couldn’t pay an emergency expense of $400.
No one who knows anything thinks trade wars are ever “good” or “easy to win.” Just the opposite. They’re unpredictable, mutually destructive and hit ordinary Americans from every direction. American farmers and manufacturers continue to sell fewer products and have less money to spend, spiraling into fewer jobs and lower wages for everybody. The greatest danger is the possibility of eventually pushing the growing U.S. economy Trump inherited into another recession.
It looks like Trump thinks if he just keeps lying to his supporters, they won’t notice what’s really happening to them. There’s another more frightening possibility: Trump himself might not know what’s really happening.
