Simon Johnson: Trump’s tariffs would burden Americans and favour the rich
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Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. The heart of Donald Trump’s proposed economic policies are big new tariffs on all goods imported into the United States. The former United States president [who is now the candidate from the Republican Party for the presidential elections to be held in the country next month] claims that tariffs will protect jobs, increase wages and usher in a new era of American prosperity.
Apparently convinced that he has found an economic panacea, Trump proudly calls himself the “Tariff Man." But a tariff is just a fancy name for a tax imposed on people who buy imported goods (and anything produced domestically using imported inputs). So, the Trump proposal would squeeze all American households, with a particularly harsh impact on working people with lower incomes. Even if these tariffs do not plunge the world into a self-destructive trade war, United States trade partners would likely retaliate—and that will hurt everyone who works in America’s successful and high-productivity export sector.
Trump has a degree from the Wharton School of business at the University of Pennsylvania, and so should know how tariffs work. Admittedly, he graduated in 1968, but the analysis of tariffs was well understood 50 years ago—and the basic facts remain the same. Kimberly Clausing and Mary E.
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