Collateral Damage
American companies and consumers are the sacrificial lamb in Trump’s trade war
introduced in July that include Chinese components for television and video equipment, Element TV Co., a television manufacturer based in South Carolina, announced that it was laying off 126 workers, the vast majority of its employees, leaving a workforce of only eight people to run its plant.
Increasing trade tensions are also plaguing steel and aluminum consumers in the country. Trump’s move to impose tariffs on steel and aluminum is meant to protect an industry that employs about 140,000 Americans at home. Yet the tariffs themselves hurt a far larger group of U.S. workers—the 6.5 million in industries that rely on steel and aluminum—ranging from automakers and aircraft manufacturers to the suppliers of building materials.
In early March, the Beer Institute, an industry trade group, predicted that the 10-percent tariff on imported aluminum would lead to the loss of 20,300 jobs at bars, breweries and along the industrial chain in between. Tariffs are biting big companies too, with General Motors, Whirlpool and Ford all performing worse than expected in the second quarter of this year.
The increasing burden on manufacturers will eventually translate into higher prices for American consumers, especially those with lower incomes. Moreover, the United States is starting to find the retaliation of foreign governments particularly troublesome.
China has announced tariffs primarily focused on agricultural goods imported from the United States. Panic has spread among U.S. farmers, especially the 300,000 in soybean production, who fear that they
If Trump continues his tariff game, then more businesses in the United States are likely to become caught in the crossfire of the ensuing trade conflicts