No, no, don’t elect this guy - It can’t possibly work
On the campaign trail, Donald J. Trump has promised to do quite a few things that are beyond the powers of an American president, like billing Mexico for a border wall. But when it comes to foreign trade, his powers as president would come closer to his expansive ambitions.
As president, Mr. Trump could seek to penalize other nations for undercutting American manufacturers or stealing American ideas. He could also pursue congressional legislation to impose a 45 percent tariff, or tax, on imported Chinese goods, as he has proposed.
The bottom line, some experts say, is that Mr. Trump might well be able to squeeze China.
That does not mean, however, that his punitive approach would ease America’s economic pains. In fact, a range of experts agree that Mr. Trump’s proposals are more likely to deepen those problems, particularly if China or other targeted nations retaliate, rather than accept his demands.
Starting a trade war might be cathartic for workers who have lost jobs, but it is unlikely to create a lot of factory work.
“There’s no way a tariff of this kind could deliver the kind of benefits that he’s talking about, and it’s quite wrong to think that the big problem for American workers has been foreign trade,” said J .W. Mason, a professor of economics at John Jay College and a fellow at the Roosevelt Institute, a liberal think tank. “But I think it could be very destructive for the rest of the world.”
Mr. Trump’s views on trade are among his oldest and steadiest public policy positions. He has long maintained that other countries are taking advantage of the United States because Americans spend more money on foreign goods than the rest of the world spends on American goods. And he has long argued for slapping higher tariffs on those foreign goods in order to fortify the American economy.
Trade was the first policy issue Mr. Trump mentioned last Tuesday in a speech after his latest round of victories in five northeastern primaries.
“Our jobs are being sucked away from our country and we’re not going to let it happen anymore, folks,” he said at a victory party in New York that night.
It emerged again Wednesday in Washington during what was billed as a major foreign policy speech.
This Tuesday, Mr. Trump hopes to sweep the delegates in Indiana and all but sew up the Republican nomination. Nowhere has trade figured more centrally than in the Hoosier State, where the air conditioner maker Carrier opted to move operations to Mexico, becoming a recurrent feature in Mr. Trump’s anti-free-trade litanies.
China has prospered over the last few decades by focusing its economy on low-cost manufacturing for foreign markets. Exports to the United States soared, particularly after China joined the World Trade Organization in 2001. American businesses and consumers bought $481.9 billion in Chinese goods in 2015, about one-fifth of all imports and the most from any country. But manufacturing employment in the United States has fallen sharply. A 2013 study estimated that China’s rise had eliminated at least one million domestic factory jobs.
In the current campaign, Mr. Trump has proposed a 45 percent tax on Chinese imports and a 35 percent tax on Mexican imports. He has also proposed tariffs on goods that specific American companies produce in foreign countries, including Carrier air-conditioners and Ford automobiles.
Mr. Trump has said the threat of such tariffs would persuade China, for example, to modify the economic policies that he describes as providing unfair advantages to Chinese companies. Rather than incur his wrath, he says, American companies would be persuaded to keep more of their factories close to home.
“The 45 percent is a threat that if they don’t behave,” Mr. Trump said at a Republican debate in Miami last month, the United States “will tax you.”
He added: “It doesn’t have to be 45; it could be less. But it has to be something because our country and our trade and our deals and most importantly our jobs are going to hell.”
As president, Mr. Trump would have some latitude to reverse a course that the nation has pursued for decades. But the results could be troublesome on multiple fronts. The removal of trade barriers has played a significant role in reducing global poverty and encouraging peace between nations, achievements that could be eroded by tit-for-tat backsliding.
“The basic principle is that a sovereign state enters trade agreements of its free will, and it can get back out,” said Robert Howse, the Lloyd C. Nelson professor of international law at N.Y.U. School of Law. “But that’s the easy part.”
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