President Donald Trump‘s business conflict will get worse this year, with additional rounds of taxes anticipated on friends and Chinese tariffs on American goods in retaliation.
” The senator has spoken about what he wants to do now, and we’ll see how the timeline works, but we expect an news”, White House National Economic Council , producer Kevin Hassert said outside the West Wing.
Hassert downplayed the outcry from friends and trading associates, including Canada, regarding the upcoming announcement following Canada and Mexico last year reached a month-long pause in across-the-board 25 % duties by promising to take action against drug use and illegal immigration, mainly fentanyl.
” Let’s wait and see what comes out”, he said.
Trump did not specify when the tariffs would go into effect, but he did inform reporters on Air Force One on Sunday as he traveled to New Orleans to watch the Super Bowl. Similar tariffs were imposed on Canada and Mexico during the president’s first administration, but duties on the European Union did not end with former President Joe Biden taking office.
Trump views tariffs as “beautiful”, using them to protect U. S. jobs and raise revenue, though critics contend they also raise consumer prices.
Trump discussed reciprocal duties last week during his press conference with Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba, and the steel and aluminum tariffs come ahead of a separate announcement later this week regarding reciprocal duties.
” The president’s talked about reciprocal tariffs since I first met him in 2017″, Hassert told the Washington Examiner. He says,” He thinks it’s unfair that we have trading partners who charge tariffs two or three times what we demand.”
In an earlier interview with CNBC, Hassert cited India as an example of an ally and trading partner with “enormously high” tariffs in comparison to the United States. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is scheduled to be at the White House on Thursday.
After Trump’s announcement on Sunday, Ontario Premier Doug Ford, who is seeking reelection, took to social media to excoriate the president and predicted more” chaos” over the “next four years”.
” Shifting goalposts and constant chaos, putting our economy at risk”, he wrote.
Ontario has been running ads, including during Sunday’s Super Bowl, promoting the province as a U. S. “ally to the north”.
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Trump’s steel and aluminum tariffs coincide with China’s retaliatory trade measures against the U. S. beginning, after the president last week placed an additional 10 % duty on all Chinese goods.
China’s levies include a 15 % tariff on coal and liquefied natural gas and a 10 % duty on oil, agricultural machinery, and large-engine cars, in addition to export controls on 25 rare metals. China also began an anti-monopoly investigation into Google and added PVH, which owns Calvin Klein and Tommy Hilfiger, to its “unreliable entity” list.
