The varied and extremely high import tariffs that the Trump administration has been imposing on countries all around the world have left foreign governments and businesses stunned and confused.
Switzerland will now have its exports to the US taxed at 39 percent, and of course we have the ridiculous 50 percent import tariff on many Brazilian goods, especially coffee and meat. Brazil has managed, through swift lobbying, to get the United States to agree to a long list of exceptions of nearly 700 goods that won’t be tariffed at 50 percent.
As usual, US President Donald Trump mixes the political with issues that should solely be economic. In the case of Brazil he dreamed up the additional 40 percent tariff put on top of the original 10 percent tariff, to punish the leftist government of President Lula da Silva for prosecuting former President Jair Bolsonaro for his attempted coup on Jan. 8, 2023, in Brasilia, when he and his supporters would not accept that he had lost the election to Lula. Sound familiar?
Both General Motors and Ford have announced that the new tariffs will cost them each additional billions this year. Ford has revised its tariff costs up from $2.5 billion to $3 billion. GM says additional import tariffs on its Chevrolet and Buick models made in South Korea could cost it $5 billion in 2025. How is this supposed to help American companies grow and be more profitable?
On Sunday, a slew of Trump administration officials appeared on TV talk shows to defend his policies and assure the American public that everything was going to improve under capitalist mantras gone wild. To me it sounded like a lot of mumbo jumbo, delivered with arrogant smiles and the self-satisfied smugness that Republicans are known for.
Congress, through all of this, has completely abdicated from its mandate to set economic policies with foreign countries, handing all the decision-making powers to a clearly incompetent Trump.
Countries that could once rely on the US being a stable and predictable trading partner, are now in shock and bewilderment at Trump’s tariffs that change every day according to his mood. The orange-haired one is doing irreparable harm to America’s reputation and population.
American companies, that until now had tried to absorb the new tariffs, have announced that they can no longer do so, and that price increases are coming. Many companies imported more goods than usual from China in April and May, hoping to escape from increased tariffs. But those extra supplies can only last so long. Proctor and Gamble was one of the companies that announced price hikes on 25 percent of its products. Americans can now expect to pay more for their Bounty paper towels and Charmin toilet paper.
This will fuel inflation and cause firms to lay off staff and not hire new ones. The recent jobs figures were extremely flat and disappointing, a sign of more bad news to come. Inflation is also not going down, and with all these new higher tariffs kicking in this month of August, will surely increase.
And now Trump has ordered Texas Gov. Greg Abbot to redraw voting districts in the state to give Republicans control over five more districts. One of them is a black-majority district in Houston that does not want to be represented by a Republican.
Texas House representatives have fled en masse to Chicago this weekend so that Republicans will not be able to achieve the quorum necessary to vote on this issue. Abbot has threatened to punish these politicians, but it is unclear how much damage he can do.
Unfortunately, Texas is one of very few states where it is extremely easy for the party with the majority to get electoral maps gerrymandered to their liking.
All sane-minded Americans are waiting for the midterm elections in 2026 to punch a hole in the stranglehold that the Republican party currently has over the U.S. It’s never good when one party has overwhelming power to decide major policy issues, and it’s doubly bad when conservative, small-minded, racist and homophobic politicians have this unprecedented power.
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