Repetez moi: “tariffs are stupid.” Our President, who should know better, said the U.S. has collected billions of dollars from China as a result of the tariffs placed on imported goods. Well no, not exactly, actually not even close. Those billions of dollars have been collected from U.S. companies and manufacturers importing products and materials (like aluminum and steel, electronics, etc.) for use in the products and services that they sell. Tariffs have already cost Ford Motor Co. $1 billion in profit. U.S. consumers are also paying, until recently only on a few products (the CPI for laundry equipment was falling for about 10 years but is up 13% over the past year) but who will soon see prices on more products affected, as tariffs are placed on more products. Auto workers who were promised protectionist policies would spur manufacturing job growth must be disappointed as growth has fallen since 2017 and has been negative since mid-2017. Obviously, there are other influences on emp. growth in autos but protectionism isn’t helping. NAFTA version 2 (which looks a lot like NAFTA version 1) is hailed as the next savior for employment. Why not, those protectionist promises have worked-out so well thus far.
Trend Lines 