Tariffs Explained and What They Mean for Americans
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VOICE OVER: Rebecca Brayton
Unraveling the complex world of tariffs and their impact on everyday Americans. Get ready for a clear breakdown of this hot economic topic! We'll explore key concepts like import taxes, trade wars, and consumer prices. Learn how tariffs affect industries such as agriculture, manufacturing, and technology. Curious about the pros and cons of tariffs? We've got you covered! Share your thoughts on how tariffs might impact your life in the comments below!
Welcome to WatchMojo, and today we’re breaking down the unprecedented tariffs proposed by President-elect Trump, and what that means for your wallet.
In the months and weeks leading up to the 2024 U.S. presidential election, Republican ex-president Donald Trump increasingly campaigned on two key issues: immigration, and crucially for our video today, the economy. Everyday Americans are very much feeling the squeeze of inflation, even as it’s begun to loosen under Joe Biden and his Inflation Reduction Act. Food, gas, housing and more — prices were (and continue to be) sky-high, which Trump seized on to make the case for his second presidency. In fact, according to CNBC, “Nearly half of all voters said they were worse off financially than they were four years ago, the highest level in any election since 2008, according to an NBC News exit poll.” As a means of tackling this inflation, President-elect Trump has proposed sweeping tariffs that have the potential to significantly affect the average consumer. But what does that mean?
According to nonpartisan think tank the Tax Foundation, tariffs are “taxes imposed by one country on goods imported from another country,” and are “trade barriers that raise prices, reduce available quantities of goods and services for US businesses and consumers, and create an economic burden on foreign exporters.” Trump’s vision for tariffs, as described by the BBC’s Ben Chu[a], is to “[grow] the US economy, [protect] jobs and [raise] tax revenue,” solidly in line with his “America First” platform. As Chu succinctly defines it, a tariff “is a straightforward tax paid by domestic US firms to the US government.” For context, President Biden decided to largely leave tariffs unchanged from the president-elect’s first term, and based on her statements on the campaign trail, it seems likely that Vice President Kamala Harris would’ve, for the most part, pressed forward in this direction, had her 2024 presidential bid been a success.
So, with that in mind, how would Trump’s tariff plan differ from President Biden’s? As you probably could’ve guessed by now, if 47 gets his way, it’ll differ significantly. The Peterson Institute for International Economics, another nonpartisan think tank, issued a September 2024 report detailing Trump’s proposed economic policies, and their possible impacts; specifically, Trump’s plan to “[increase] tariffs on all US imports by 10 percentage points and [boost] tariffs on US imports from China by 60 percentage points, with or without other countries retaliating by imposing higher tariffs on their imports from the United States.” According to the Peterson Institute, this radical tariff plan could seriously damage the U.S. GDP, employment, and most of all, the economy.
President-elect Trump has repeatedly claimed that his tariffs will usher in a new era of American prosperity, protect workers and their jobs, and revitalize the sagging economy. In a speech given at the end of September 2024, Trump claimed that, under his second presidency, “American workers will no longer be worried about losing [their] jobs to foreign nations, instead, foreign nations will be worried about losing their jobs to America.” However, research conducted during Trump’s first term “found no substantial positive effects on overall employment in US industrial sectors that were protected,” according to the BBC. Said Mary Lovely[b], a senior fellow at the aforementioned Peterson Institute, “If higher taxes are placed on these imports from China, their production will move to other less developed countries.”
Perhaps even more worryingly, a report published by the National Retail Federation indicates the possible consequences of Trump’s tariffs on the consumer — and they’re definitely cause for concern. As reported by CNBC’s Annie Nova[c] and Rebecca Picciotto, “the cost of clothing could rise between 12.5% and 20.6%,” which, for example, would raise the price of men’s jeans from $80 to as high as nearly $100. The same report found that price spikes would be most pronounced on toys, somewhere between 36.3% and 55.8%. Economist Mark Zandi has warned that the resultant “massive tax increase on American families as they pay more for all imports, [will cut] into their purchasing power and thus [weigh] heavily on their spending and the overall economy.”
Trump has been quoted as saying that “[to] me, the most beautiful word in the dictionary is 'tariff.’” However, according to conservative issue advocacy group the American Action Forum, the negative effects of his proposed tariffs could be wide-ranging, and lead to retaliation from U.S. trade partners. AAF data analyst Jacob Jensen[d] broke this down, saying: “[if] all countries were to respond with a 10 percent tariff on goods imported from the United States, retaliatory tariff values could reach $200 billion” — this would have an immediate and potentially devastating effect on the U.S. economy, and would inflate the costs passed down to the average American. Jensen further reported that these retaliatory tariffs, from countries such as Canada, Mexico, and Germany, could cause the average household income to drop by up to 6%.
Perhaps the buzziest question on everyone’s mind is how Trump’s proposed economic policies will affect the United States’ already tense relationship with China — could fears of a slowly escalating trade war come to pass? The president-elect has promised to impose massive tariffs of up to 60% on all Chinese imported goods, which is cause for deep concern in Beijing amidst a weakened Chinese economy. As the American Action Forum’s Jacob Jensen reported, the 60% tariff floated by the 45th and 47th president “would drive new U.S. tariffs from an estimated $300 billion to $522 billion,” and that placing this tariff on bilateral trade “would likely drive the global economy into a depression.” While Jensen is quick to point out that this situation is unlikely to occur given the two countries’ reliance on one another, it’s clear that economists are right to worry about what the president-elect’s campaign pledges could lead to.
The argument can be made that Trump has noble intentions behind implementing sky-high tariffs — he aims to protect the livelihoods of American workers while increasing his country’s competitiveness on the global stage. However, experts’ concerns are far from unfounded. They suggest that this move could alienate the U.S. from its allies, provoke retaliatory measures against it, and worst of all, hurt the average American. Amidst heightened uncertainty ahead of Trump’s second presidency, one thing is for sure: Trump is a politician unlike any other.
What do you think of President-elect Trump’s proposed tariffs? Let us know in the comments below!
[c]https://youtu.be/1Pd8t03NSEQ?si=YAfUnsXsUcserq4Z&t=4
puh-CHOH-toh????
https://youtu.be/vmssJRLWCsQ?si=Kj0AJz6gaMlvi9q0&t=9
[d]https://youtu.be/jIMn5hnhovA?si=ryC39ttdtY4TFFvT&t=11
In the months and weeks leading up to the 2024 U.S. presidential election, Republican ex-president Donald Trump increasingly campaigned on two key issues: immigration, and crucially for our video today, the economy. Everyday Americans are very much feeling the squeeze of inflation, even as it’s begun to loosen under Joe Biden and his Inflation Reduction Act. Food, gas, housing and more — prices were (and continue to be) sky-high, which Trump seized on to make the case for his second presidency. In fact, according to CNBC, “Nearly half of all voters said they were worse off financially than they were four years ago, the highest level in any election since 2008, according to an NBC News exit poll.” As a means of tackling this inflation, President-elect Trump has proposed sweeping tariffs that have the potential to significantly affect the average consumer. But what does that mean?
According to nonpartisan think tank the Tax Foundation, tariffs are “taxes imposed by one country on goods imported from another country,” and are “trade barriers that raise prices, reduce available quantities of goods and services for US businesses and consumers, and create an economic burden on foreign exporters.” Trump’s vision for tariffs, as described by the BBC’s Ben Chu[a], is to “[grow] the US economy, [protect] jobs and [raise] tax revenue,” solidly in line with his “America First” platform. As Chu succinctly defines it, a tariff “is a straightforward tax paid by domestic US firms to the US government.” For context, President Biden decided to largely leave tariffs unchanged from the president-elect’s first term, and based on her statements on the campaign trail, it seems likely that Vice President Kamala Harris would’ve, for the most part, pressed forward in this direction, had her 2024 presidential bid been a success.
So, with that in mind, how would Trump’s tariff plan differ from President Biden’s? As you probably could’ve guessed by now, if 47 gets his way, it’ll differ significantly. The Peterson Institute for International Economics, another nonpartisan think tank, issued a September 2024 report detailing Trump’s proposed economic policies, and their possible impacts; specifically, Trump’s plan to “[increase] tariffs on all US imports by 10 percentage points and [boost] tariffs on US imports from China by 60 percentage points, with or without other countries retaliating by imposing higher tariffs on their imports from the United States.” According to the Peterson Institute, this radical tariff plan could seriously damage the U.S. GDP, employment, and most of all, the economy.
President-elect Trump has repeatedly claimed that his tariffs will usher in a new era of American prosperity, protect workers and their jobs, and revitalize the sagging economy. In a speech given at the end of September 2024, Trump claimed that, under his second presidency, “American workers will no longer be worried about losing [their] jobs to foreign nations, instead, foreign nations will be worried about losing their jobs to America.” However, research conducted during Trump’s first term “found no substantial positive effects on overall employment in US industrial sectors that were protected,” according to the BBC. Said Mary Lovely[b], a senior fellow at the aforementioned Peterson Institute, “If higher taxes are placed on these imports from China, their production will move to other less developed countries.”
Perhaps even more worryingly, a report published by the National Retail Federation indicates the possible consequences of Trump’s tariffs on the consumer — and they’re definitely cause for concern. As reported by CNBC’s Annie Nova[c] and Rebecca Picciotto, “the cost of clothing could rise between 12.5% and 20.6%,” which, for example, would raise the price of men’s jeans from $80 to as high as nearly $100. The same report found that price spikes would be most pronounced on toys, somewhere between 36.3% and 55.8%. Economist Mark Zandi has warned that the resultant “massive tax increase on American families as they pay more for all imports, [will cut] into their purchasing power and thus [weigh] heavily on their spending and the overall economy.”
Trump has been quoted as saying that “[to] me, the most beautiful word in the dictionary is 'tariff.’” However, according to conservative issue advocacy group the American Action Forum, the negative effects of his proposed tariffs could be wide-ranging, and lead to retaliation from U.S. trade partners. AAF data analyst Jacob Jensen[d] broke this down, saying: “[if] all countries were to respond with a 10 percent tariff on goods imported from the United States, retaliatory tariff values could reach $200 billion” — this would have an immediate and potentially devastating effect on the U.S. economy, and would inflate the costs passed down to the average American. Jensen further reported that these retaliatory tariffs, from countries such as Canada, Mexico, and Germany, could cause the average household income to drop by up to 6%.
Perhaps the buzziest question on everyone’s mind is how Trump’s proposed economic policies will affect the United States’ already tense relationship with China — could fears of a slowly escalating trade war come to pass? The president-elect has promised to impose massive tariffs of up to 60% on all Chinese imported goods, which is cause for deep concern in Beijing amidst a weakened Chinese economy. As the American Action Forum’s Jacob Jensen reported, the 60% tariff floated by the 45th and 47th president “would drive new U.S. tariffs from an estimated $300 billion to $522 billion,” and that placing this tariff on bilateral trade “would likely drive the global economy into a depression.” While Jensen is quick to point out that this situation is unlikely to occur given the two countries’ reliance on one another, it’s clear that economists are right to worry about what the president-elect’s campaign pledges could lead to.
The argument can be made that Trump has noble intentions behind implementing sky-high tariffs — he aims to protect the livelihoods of American workers while increasing his country’s competitiveness on the global stage. However, experts’ concerns are far from unfounded. They suggest that this move could alienate the U.S. from its allies, provoke retaliatory measures against it, and worst of all, hurt the average American. Amidst heightened uncertainty ahead of Trump’s second presidency, one thing is for sure: Trump is a politician unlike any other.
What do you think of President-elect Trump’s proposed tariffs? Let us know in the comments below!
[a]https://youtu.be/ziJdW43ZbK8?si=ADm9okn5vwnXbkcK
[b]https://youtu.be/c5EaRV-zGzo?si=QzNj5BT2miyPPdv4[c]https://youtu.be/1Pd8t03NSEQ?si=YAfUnsXsUcserq4Z&t=4
puh-CHOH-toh????
https://youtu.be/vmssJRLWCsQ?si=Kj0AJz6gaMlvi9q0&t=9
[d]https://youtu.be/jIMn5hnhovA?si=ryC39ttdtY4TFFvT&t=11
