Leader: Trump is serious about customs – be prepared for the week from hell
Earlier this week gave the investment bank Goldman Sachs a warning To their customers: Market participants do not take Donald Trump’s threat seriously. They count on customs duties of an average of 9 percent when the president will tell about all the tariffs planned against the rest of the world next Wednesday – but it may very well be double.
That it still has to go out with warnings because Trump is serious about his trade war is a mystery, but obviously it is needed.
The previous message about customs against Canada and Mexico triggered sharp cases on the US stock exchanges. But last week recovered They themselves. Speculation that the White House was thinking of « making exceptions » lifted the mood.
And so many continue to stubbornly cling to the hope that it is only negotiating tactics.
But the man who says he loves customs duties means what he says. And he is clear about what he wants them for: they will generate income to the state and get companies to move factories to the United States. In order for them to have that type of effect, they must be introduced and be quite high.
It is about by far the highest US customs levels since the United States opened world trade after the Second World War.
It is also worth noting what the reports that were the basis for speculation about exceptions were actually about: Trump administration has not decided whether all the world’s countries should receive their own unique customs rate or whether they are to be sorted into three different levels, and if only the countries that the US acts most are to be affected in a first stage.
It is not particularly soothing. And quite remarkable: A week before Washington intends to redraw the global economy in a way that has not happened since at least Richard Nixon decoupled the gold, and the Bretton Woods system collapsed, so you have not decided on how.
Last Wednesday gave Trump a taster of what awaits with his message about car duties at 25 percent. The head of EU’s trade policy told In turn, he expects the Union to be hit by tariffs of around 20 percent next week.
It is about by far the highest US customs levels since the United States opened world trade after the Second World War. And since the administration has like modus operandi to chat in signal into the last of what to do, we should count on the worst: high customs and Continued uncertainty about their exact design.
« Liberation Day » calls Donald Trump on Wednesday, April 2.
The rest of us should agree that next week will be a week from hell for the global economy.
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