Trump imposes high tariffs on Canada, Mexico and China
Donald Trump has imposed a 25 percent tariff on goods coming from Mexico and Canada, together with a ten percent tariff on Canadian energy imports and all goods from China. The US President justified the move saying it was aimed at countering the threat of "illegal aliens and deadly drugs" crossing US borders. The three affected countries have announced countermeasures. Europe's press shows little understanding for Trump's move.
EU next in line
Trump's economic policy is completely erratic, criticises Der Standard:
“The tariffs render the current North American free trade agreement, which Trump himself negotiated during his first term in office, obsolete. And they damage one of the most closely interlinked economic areas in the world. Trump is not making any concrete demands of Mexico and Canada that would enable them to avert the painful tariffs. ... It is equally unclear why China, whose trade policy is much more problematic, is only being charged ten percent and is thus reacting tentatively. But Trump's hatred is directed more against friendly democracies than authoritarian opponents. This will also be felt by the EU states, which are sure to be next in line.”
Trade War 2
As in Trump's first term, Europe will not be spared from US tariffs, fears Večernji list:
“The US president has threatened the EU with a trade war in recent months and said that if the EU doesn't buy more US oil and gas there would be 'tariffs all the way'. ... We know what this could look like from his first term in office. Back then he imposed tariffs of 25 percent on steel and ten percent on aluminium imports from the EU, Canada and Mexico. This led to a trade war with the EU, which countered with tariffs on US products such as whisky, motorbikes and jeans worth around six billion dollars. The European Commission has announced that it is prepared to take countermeasures again if Trump introduces tariffs again.”
Not without risk for the president
US consumers will pay the price for this, the Süddeutsche Zeitung believes:
“Prices in the US are likely to rise because importers will pass on the import fees. ... The president has already prepared his fellow Americans for this. His economic advisors apparently believe that the higher prices will only be temporary. If they're wrong, Trump will have made his first big mistake. He promised voters that he would bring down prices, and many Americans voted for him for precisely that reason. If inflation picks up again, they will blame him. Regardless of how many billions he claims his tariffs have raised or how many industrial jobs they've created.”
Testing how far he can go
Trump is testing the limits, Corriere della Sera fears:
“Unfortunately, we must also consider another, even more radical hypothesis. It has to do with the brutality of the first days of his government, including the tariffs that were imposed in a way that seems to belie his dealmaker logic. ... This suggests that Trump, having long studied how to eliminate the obstacles that held him back in his first term, is now imposing paradigm shifts on all fronts to assert the absolute power of the executive branch. ... He is doing this by ignoring the laws of Congress (and in some cases the Constitution), using emergency powers out of hand and testing the waters to see how far he can go - at home and abroad - without encountering much resistance.”
A reissue of the Monroe Doctrine
The tariffs have little to do with economics or trade, La Repubblica objects:
“The stated aim is political: to seal up US borders against illegal immigration, to eliminate the drug cartels, to control China's incursion into Washington's back yard. Either Mexico and Canada cooperate or they will have to bear the costs of US tariffs. This confirms an important feature of Trump II's foreign policy: the White House is reaffirming its own sphere of influence in the Western Hemisphere. Trump, by drawing on the decisions of the late 19th century, is in fact applying a kind of updated [isolationist] Monroe Doctrine . ... According to that doctrine, America needs not allies but obedient countries as neighbours.”
Turning bloc logic on its head
Trump is disrupting both globalisation and bloc thinking in international relations, writes sociologist Pedro Gomes Sanches in Expresso:
“A global world that is more profitable for everyone is giving way to a half-world of blocs that is less profitable for some. The underlying assumption is that the democracies, or 'the West' if you prefer, acts as a bloc: with customs sanctions against the 'other' bloc (there are plenty of reasons for this, from social to labour to environmental dumping), but no tariffs within it. However Trump has turned this thesis on its head: with his disdain for old allies and the threat of tariffs for us Europeans too.”