Well he did it. A piece of theatre for his domestic audience and a collection of made-up numbers to justify his tariffs.
1) A big driver of this - perhaps the main one for Trump - is that this raises billions in tax revenue from ordinary Americans which he can then spend giving tax breaks to the rich.
2) Prices will shoot up in the States. Hopefully the stock markets will tank along with Trump's ratings.
3) There will be reciprocal tariffs from most of those hit, particularly the EU and China. US companies will find it noticeably harder to sell to those countries/regions.
4) The UK's softly, softly approach. Who knows what's going on in the negotiations for a trade deal, so it's hard to say if it makes sense to retaliate immediately. But according to Trump, the 10% we're being hit with is not a so-called 'reciprocal' tariff - it's the minimum, the penalty for daring to export the the US. So it's difficult to see what we can negotiate to get rid of it. I just hope that we're acting like grown-up negotiators behind the scenes and that ALL options, including tariffs and increased tax on tech companies are really on the table. I fear a pathetic sell-out, involving outrageous concessions, just to get rid of the 10%.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/202 ... ration-day
