Comment by nickff
5 days ago
If you want to restrict imports from China, it is somewhat necessary to restrict trade from Western countries as well, in order to prevent evasion by trans-shipping (until and unless they restrict Chinese imports as well).
Canada has been laundering Chinese aluminum and steel, Malaysia has been laundering Chinese ‘honey’, etc.
There were way cheaper and more-effective ways to achieve that. And that's not why the administration says they're doing this, anyway. It's because we have trade deficits, period. Or it's because of fentanyl, since that was the justification for the invocation of emergency powers that're letting the executive impose tariffs at all.
>If you want to restrict imports from China, it is somewhat necessary to restrict trade from Western countries as wel
A good strategy would be not to impose tariffs all goods, just the more important ones, and you would do it WITH your allies. Threaten the same tariffs on allies as China if they do not get on board. You could even use the leverage to get China to increase domestic consumption so they aren't exporting so hard.
Trump's policies aren't going to achieve what he thinks they will.