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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsYes, Trump's Tariffs Are Still Hurting Americans -- No, He Still Doesn't Care
Back in 2018, President Trump slapped tariffs on several imported products and raw materials. The taxes were imposed mostly in an effort to force foreign nations to renegotiate their trade deals with the United States, about which Trump has complained repeatedly. Most significant were the tariffs placed on imported steel and aluminum, as well as a series of escalating tariffs on hundreds of billions in goods from China. The nations affected have responded with retaliatory tariffs on a wide array of products, resulting in a trade war that has made life more expensive for American companies, famers and consumers, drawing the ire of lawmakers from both parties.
Though Trumps tariffs have been particularly hard on the agriculture industry (which was so debilitated that the Trump administration had to set aside $12 billion to bail out farmers last November), theyve also caused the prices of consumer goods to soar.
Washing machines, for instance. A recent study by two researchers at the University of Chicago and one from the Federal Reserve Board used the case of washing machines to demonstrate the effect Trumps tariffs have had on consumer goods. What they found wasnt pretty. Since Trump imposed tariffs on washing machines in January 2018, the average price of the appliance has risen 12 percent or, as NBC News notes, $86 to $92 more per machine.
Though consumers are suffering, manufacturers are doing fine. As the Wall Street Journal points out, Whirlpool recently reported a 400-percent increase in quarterly profits from 2018 to 2019. They attributed the bump to margin expansion resulting from pricing actions.
According to a study released in March by Columbia, Princeton and the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, Trumps tariffs are costing American consumers $1.4 billion per month. The researchers note that this was a conservative estimate. Another study released in March found that Trumps tariffs cost consumers $69 billion in additional costs in 2018. Not nice.
https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/trumps-tariff-hurting-americans-farmers-830772/
Iliyah
(25,111 posts)riversedge
(69,710 posts)whow.
SWBTATTReg
(21,856 posts)Not good news for rump and his cronies for the election of 2020. Along w/ higher net taxes due to the 2017 tax cut and jobs bill, as well as the above, consumers are feeling the pain and will vote accordingly.