Donald Trump’s Trade War could get REAL quickly for our spending….
We’ll see if prices on all these items rise costing American consumers more money and creating a further drag on the economy….
At 12:01 a.m., U.S. customs will begin collecting a 15 percent tax on products such as clothing, footwear, pens, pencils, diapers, Bluetooth ear buds, televisions, golf clubs and fishing line. The official list of affected items runs 114 single-spaced pages.
“This is the first time U.S. consumers will see the costs quite directly, right as we head into the busiest shopping time of the year,” said Edward Alden, an economics professor at Western Washington University.
Even as he braces for potential consumer irritation over higher prices, the president on Friday accused business executives who oppose his tariff strategy of blaming him for their own failures.
Leaving the White House for the presidential retreat at Camp David, Trump said that poorly performing companies were using tariffs as an excuse. “Badly run and weak companies are smartly blaming these small Tariffs instead of themselves for bad management…and who can really blame them for doing that? Excuses!” he tweeted earlier in the day.
The president also told reporters that “13 percent of companies are going to be leaving China,” an apparent reference to a survey by the U.S.-China Business Council, which found that 87 percent of companies operating in the Chinese market plan to stay put despite trade tensions.
Only 3 percent of the 220 companies surveyed said they would relocate to the United States while 17 percent said they had reduced or halted planned investment in China.
For more than a year, as the world’s two largest economies plunged into a worsening commercial conflict, the president tried to insulate voters from the effects of his import taxes. His first import taxes last year were aimed at what are called intermediate goods, machinery and components that companies use to make their final products.
Major business groups, notably including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, complained that the tariffs were hurting their bottom lines. But hoping for an early end to the trade war, many companies absorbed the costs in the form of thinner profits or leaned on their Chinese suppliers to share the burden.
On Sunday, back-to-school shoppers will join the ranks of those feeling the tariffs’ pinch as imported goods such as musical instruments, contact lenses and tools are hit with the new levy….
image……voanews.com