Donald Trump, who has been outspoken about his tariff-heavy trade policy, appears to have shifted the focus of his protectionist agenda away from China and toward some of America's closest allies.
The Republican presidential candidate said at a campaign event in Savannah, Georgia, on Tuesday that he would build on the tariff policies of his first term and work to take manufacturing jobs away from foreign countries, whether friend or foe.
“You're going to see a massive exodus of manufacturing from China to Pennsylvania, from South Korea to North Carolina, from Germany to Georgia,” he said in a largely economics-focused speech.
“I want German car companies to become American car companies, and I want them to build factories here,” he added.
During his first term, Trump imposed billions of dollars worth of tariffs on Chinese goods as part of an effort to correct what he saw as an unfair trade balance. Trump said he would consider imposing new tariffs of 60% or higher on imports from the country.
U.S. allies are likely to be key targets of Trump's “America First” policy, which increasingly aligns European and Asian partners with rival China. The former president proposed a package of tariffs of up to 20% that would hit imports from all countries.
“We've been treated so badly, primarily by our allies…our allies have actually treated us worse than our so-called enemies,” Trump said at a conference. Wisconsin rally earlier this month.
“Military, we protect them, and then they screw us over on trade. We're not going to let that happen again. We're going to be a tariff nation,” he added.
The remarks echoed those Trump made earlier this year targeting Taiwan, when he accused the island of accounting for “about 100 percent” of the U.S. chip business. He also said the democratically governed island should pay U.S. defense costs.
Trump has long sought to exert economic and diplomatic pressure on U.S. allies, accusing Nick Marrow, global trade director at the Economist Intelligence Unit, said his recent statements showed he was doubling down on that approach.
Experts say Japan is also worried that President Trump and his presidency may become “transactional” again. Mentioned 100% tariff Certain imported cars. “Will this include Japanese automakers? So there's a lot of uncertainty right now about what the next five years will look like,” author William Pesek told CNBC's “Squawk Box Asia” in July.
“One of the biggest risks to Trump’s tariff bias is that other countries will not sit up and take these actions. Retaliation from other U.S. trading partners — whether through reciprocity, retaliatory tariffs or other non-tariff measures — is a potential Possibly the consequences of all this,” Maro said.
Trump also said on Tuesday that he plans to achieve a “manufacturing renaissance” by enacting corporate tax cuts, creating low-tax special economic zones and providing tax credits for companies that move production to the United States.
“These policies may attract some manufacturing back to the United States, especially industries that are sensitive to trade barriers,” said Stephen Weymouth, a professor of international political economy at Georgetown University.
“However, given the complexity of global supply chains and higher labor costs in the United States, these plans are unlikely to lead to widespread industrial reshoring,” he added.
Economist Stephen Roach also told CNBC that Trump's tariffs will harm U.S. trading partners and will only increase the cost of goods for American consumers and manufacturers. This is related to Mainstream economic view Regarding tariffs.
“U.S. manufacturers that rely on foreign parts will suffer a double whammy – their inputs will become more expensive due to Trump's tariffs, and their exports will become more expensive due to retaliatory tariffs,” Sauer International William Reinsch, chair of the Department of Business, said.
However, Trump insisted that other countries would foot the bill. “I'm not raising your taxes; I'm raising taxes on China and all the countries in Asia and around the world, including the European Union, which is one of the most egregious,” he told a rally in Wisconsin.
Reinsch said the tariffs, if implemented, would also mark a clear break between long-term U.S. trade policy and mainstream economic thinking.
Particularly when dealing with China, the current Biden administration relies heavily on a coordinated approach to enforcing trade restrictions with like-minded partners such as Japan and the Netherlands.
While the Biden administration has maintained most of Trump's tariffs on China and even increased taxes on certain high-tech industries, Reinsch described the differences in the two countries' approaches to trade restrictions as “Trump's sledgehammer versus Biden's” /Harris’ Scalpel”.
Still, the extent to which Trump's tariff proposals are real or more of a threat has been a subject of debate.
in a Interviewed by CNBC TV18 Jamie Dimon, chairman and chief executive of JPMorgan Chase & Co., said in a release Tuesday that some of Trump's top advisers told him the proposed tariff rates were more of a negotiating tactic to favor a trade deal. , rather than the expected result.