Josh Cottrill
In the past couple of months, President Donald Trump has been making remarks about proposing tariffs on Chinese goods in an effort to increase spending on domestic-made goods and services. While that may seem good for the US as it could potentially raise the GDP and promote companies from the United States, The lasting effects on China and their economy, won’t be very good. A very large portion of China’s economy and monetary value comes from all of their exported goods such as toys, food, manufacturing products, and so much more. As a matter of fact they are the number one exporting country in the world at about $2.263 trillion in 2017 as they top the United States which is at about $1.546 trillion. The Chinese trade tariffs will do no good to global economy, as the United States depends greatly on Chinese made products, and as a result of these special taxes, neither country will positively impacted in the long run.
As the supply of the chinese made goods goes down, there will be less demand for people to buy them, so Americans will mostly rely on American made goods, which initially sounds like a good plan for the US economy, however this is projected to only be a temporary change, not a permanent one. COuntries are supposed to interact with other countries, helping them where help is needed, and ultimately making those countries better and better. However, eliminating this interaction between China and America is not a good thing in the long run. CHina makes so many important goods for people all over the world. For example, they make iPhone parts and actually construct the phones themselves as well, they also make a lot of manufacturing equipment such as machines and tools. As a matter of fact, there is an incredible chance that something you have already interacted with today - and even every day- has been made from China. This computer was most likely made in China as well.
Because China has such a large impact on goods everyone uses daily, would you want to pay more money for products? According to www.msn.com, these Chinese goods’ rates are expected to climb to a 25% increase in price by 2019. That means if you want to buy a new iPhone that was made in China, you would have to spend nearly $1400 dollars and that is just insane. Likewise, this would force the American public to not buy from specific companies such as Apple anymore, and due to the fact that millions of people around the US and even around the globe are loyal customers to the brand, means that their sales won’t go down too much, especially when new technology comes out like the new iPhones, Apple watches, and more. As another example, the price of fast food would ultimately increase because all of the machines at fast food restaurants are made in China. Everyone knows how the ice cream machine is always broken at McDonalds, so what if they bout a new ice cream machine at every store, and had to inflate the prices to $2.00 or $2.50 per individual soft serve cone. Ultimately, imposed tariffs on Chinese exported products would not help China, nor the United States respectively. It would only raise prices for everyone because so many products that the public interacts with are made in China, where in total, no one would benefit from this in the long term.
Works Cited
Chinese Official Tells American Investors at a Meeting: We Don't Fear a Trade War with the US, www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/chinese-official-tells-american-investors-at-a-meeting-we-dont-fear-a-trade-war-with-the-us/ar-BBOJXvC?li=BBnbfcN.
Lee, Xin En. “Trump's Tariffs Threaten to Shatter China's Economy. It Already Has Cracks.” CNBC, CNBC, 24 Sept. 2018, www.cnbc.com/2018/09/24/trumps-trade-war-threatens-chinese-economy-china-already-has-cracks.html.
“Top Exporting Countries Worldwide 2017.” Statista, www.statista.com/statistics/264623/leading-export-countries-worldwide/.
I feel like if we were to impose tariffs on Chinese goods, we would be impacted in so many more ways than we realize. Almost all of our products we own are made in China. The laptops we type these comments on were made in China, as well as most of our clothes. As you said, the projected benefit for the US economy would only be temporary. Imagine having to spend even more money on Chinese manufactured electronics, such as iPhone's, which are already very expensive.
ReplyDeleteIt’s easy to see where President Trump is coming from in order to try and get people to buy goods from the U.S. but the issue is that so many things that we use comes from China it’s hard to impose that tariff which will ultimately cause problems instead of helping. There are somethings that yes people in the U.S. should buy from the U.S. to help our economy but on the other hand it’s hard to just make everything from China more expensive to do so. Half of the things in the classroom wouldn’t be here because most of it was made in China, including the clothes that people are wearing. Where would we be then?
ReplyDeletePutting tariffs on such a large export economy like China’s would definitely not be a smart idea. Taking away the ability to purchase chinese made goods in the U.S. would definitely impact the economy right away; especially since, as you said, majority of the items we use today were made in China and not the U.S.. Chinese goods are less expensive to buy than the American made goods, so putting tariffs on China would just lead to people having to buy more American made products, but for a more expensive price.
ReplyDeleteAgastya Asthana,
ReplyDeleteI agree that imposing tariffs on chinese goods will affect the global economy, as well as U.S and Chinese economies. Goods made in China are way cheaper because of cheap labor. Such is illegal in the U.S and means that American made goods are more expensive than Chinese made. The most expensive phone, the iPhone X costs about $1000 since most of the product is made in China, if this phone were to be made only by Americans, it would cost an extra thousand dollars due to the fact that labor is not cheap and there is a minimum wage that must be paid, as well as the parts used will be expensive due to the expensive labor. I am by no means saying that expensive labor is a bad thing - just to be clear.
I agree with what you’re saying, talking about how this will increase the cost of everything and may cause inflation. They always talk about how U.S. items cost so much, and that could be because not many people buy those items so they must raise the price. Yes, we pay our workers a lot of money, but say that if we have more people buying American made items wouldn’t that decrease the cost. There is just a slight chance that this would work for America and we’ll have to see what happens.
ReplyDeleteAs you mentioned people have been buying from some of these companies for many years making them these consumers attached to buying whatever comes out next. Even though these new products increase due to the Chinese Tariffs most people will stick with these companies that have been their go to source. Sure, some people may look at the price and say “I’m not paying that much.” but in the long run there is still going to be enough people out there buying these products to support companies like Apple that even with an increase tariff can’t stop their new buying spree.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you, putting tariffs on China could increase the cost of everything that would could have been made in China. Also the reason we want Chinese goods is because in China, the factory workers get paid very little, according to the Washington Post, 62 dollars a week. China is also in a very good spot for resources. In America we have iron mines and coal mines, but China is surrounded by suppliers in platinum, such as Russia who according to World Atlas is the 2nd highest producer of Platinum in the world, only getting beat by South Africa which is number one. According to usfunds, the number one producer of gold in the world is China and number three is Russia. And according to Investopedia, the number fifth and number sixth highest silver producing countries are China and Russia. These precious metals are used in making Iphones and other electronics, so they will definitely have and advantage being allies and being some of the highest producers of these precious metals. If we were to make those in America, we would be paying a lot more for exports from countries such as South America and even China themselves, and would make the cost of the technology produced in America much more expensive.
ReplyDeleteApplying the trade tariff on China is in trying to get more people to buy items and tools from the United States producers however putting this ban on will ultimately just hurt us immensely more anyhow. Technological advances have been more successful in China and some South American countries rather than the US therefore the tariff wouldn't be helping our economy as much as it would be hurting to the US economy. Providing this post was very informational since all of our electronic devices primarily come from the Chinese and putting this post out shows us that the electronics in the US would be significantly less and less advanced than the electronics traded with the Chinese.
ReplyDeleteIt's interesting to hear both sides of this issue, how it can be perceived as good or bad depending on the angle you view it from. The use of Chinese goods is obviously very widespread in the United States and the price increase will likely do more harm for the millions of Americans that rely on those products. However, it is beneficial for American-made goods to start receiving more attention from consumers.
ReplyDeleteI do agree that putting tariffs on China would increase the price that the United States has to pay for the imported goods. The reason we want the goods from China is because they are cheap. The precious metals and goods that China and countries surrounding them have make the production of many electronic goods cheap and then cheaper for us to purchase. The increase in tariffs would not only increase the price of Chinese goods, but also increase the price of American goods which yes, could raise the GDP. This would obviously be a bad thing, so it will be interesting to see what the United States does to play this one out in the coming months.
ReplyDeleteI agree with what Josh said how putting tariffs on Chinese goods would be a bad idea in the long run. Sure having tariffs on Chinese goods may come with some benefits, but the benefits are limited and temporary. The United States would be greatly impacted, due to the fact that almost everything that we own is either made in China or with help from china. Everyday, everyone interacts with multiple china made products that is just a fact. From our phones to computers, the clothing that we wear, machines used to make food, and even just parts of things that come from China. Putting tariffs on Chinese goods will overall hurt the US instead of helping it.
ReplyDeleteI agree that there are both positives and negatives to this topic. I agree that this may end up causing an increase in price for Americans who want to buy Chinese products. But on the other hand maybe it isn't such a bad idea for American businesses to start getting more attention. This topic is very interesting and there are many different view points on this issue.
ReplyDeleteWhile I understand and agree with your argument economically there are other issues to contend with. First, China is a massive national security threat and US companies lose billions of dollars every year due to intellectual property threat and computer hacking. Next, key US manufacturing sectors like Steel and Aluminum cannot compete with artificially subsidized and lower quality Chinese metals, which impacts our ability to endure long term in a military conflict with China should we rely on their resources for our military. Using tariffs, although bad for both economies in the short term, hurts China more than they hurt us as China exports more to us than we do to them. This enables us to negotiate better deals with China and to potentially stop their most egregious violation of trade norms.
ReplyDeleteThe viscosity of the cash flow is directly proportional to the wealth of the citizens. China may have been undercutting the steel market, but that means that they've been undercutting the steel market. There are many economic issues that can come from selling below market value; it's a calculated risk by the Chinese producers, and if what they're selling steel at is the true market value, then perhaps US Steel was overpriced in the first place. The root of the problem is that the current administration is trying to cling to a barbaric manufacturing economy when the service economy is not only superior in terms of fair labor practices but also in terms of average income. We're no longer living in 2008; if you want a job, you can get one. Building manufacturing plants just isn't the way we go about this anymore. Factories need large quantities of unskilled labor, and the american populace is not what one would generally refer to as a group of unskilled laborers. China makes steel and your nike socks so americans don't have to and that's one of the harsh truths of the world right now. The smokestacks have to go somewhere; they used to be in Gary, Indiana, but now they're in Asia, and the grass needs to die somewhere. Those manufacturing jobs are slowly translating to South Asia, and hopefully someday your $2.99 blouses will be made by robots on the moon instead of by humans. A proposed tariff will incur price hikes on every product across the board in the market; everything we consume was produced at some point along the line by something made of steel or aluminum, and if prices of all goods rise, consumers won't consume as much that's the deadweight loss kicking in, and the economy will slow as a result.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Josh; in the long term, I think that tariffs on Chinese goods would be harmful to the economic environment of the US and China, but also the United State's ecological environment. With the shift away from manufacturing and industrial industries through importation in the US, we've been able to reduce pollution significantly. For example, during the Industrial Revolution, pollution levels skyrocketed due to the manufacturing levels in the large cities like New York and Chicago. In the long term, the United States may have to sacrifice the jobs that may be "returned" to citizens if we bring more manufacturing jobs back to the US in exchange for a better overall global economy and pollution levels in the US.
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