As early as December, president Donald Trump’s threats to impose tariffs on every single import from China could take root. Tariffs are painful for everyone, but if the Trump administration gets their way, it’s about to get a lot harder to make ends meet for many in the United States.
As the economic shock of the trade war hits in the U.S. and Asia, the real toll has yet to be felt by many. But it won’t be long before those actually footing the bill for this trade war (the American consumer) will see their bank accounts take a hit. Factory activity and export orders were seen weakening across Asia last month, but analysts warned the worst was yet to come.
The possibility of even more interest rate hikes spooked markets too. “You have a tightening of monetary conditions around the world, a slowdown in Chinese demand, and financial market turmoil that affects sentiment and investment decisions,” said Aidan Yao, senior Asia EM economist at AXA Investment Managers. According to Reuters, Yao said many orders from abroad are still frontloaded in anticipation of yet more tariffs and the impact is still mostly indirect, through the business confidence channel. “The real economic shock is yet to come,” he said.
But as we inch toward the first of the year, Americans will be forced to fork over even more cash to cover the political whims of the ruling class. Absent a deal between Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping, who are expected to attend a G20 summit this month in Buenos Aires, the recently introduced 10 percent tariffs on $200 billion of Chinese goods will be raised to 25 percent. Additionally, the Trump administration may place other tariffs on the remaining $250 billion-or-so of Chinese products which escaped the initial rounds.
“As everyone anticipates a further tariff hike…there is still a lot of front-loading going on. After January 1, we expect many trade and economic activities to tumble,” said Kevin Lai, senior economist at Daiwa Capital Markets.
I haven’t seen any improvement in the economy since Trump first came in. I’ll bet these tariffs will crash the economy faster than anything else. Fasten your seat belts kids, we’re in for a really rough ride.
You could always try opening your eyes and looking.
Anonymous, go take a flying leap.
Or, as Trump intended, China remove all tariffs and open their markets to our products. Are we supposed to sit idly by and continue to let China fleece us? Fair trade is all Trump wants. We’ve been financing the entire world for way too long. And in case you didn’t notice, our economy was going down the toilet because of it. Trump is doing what he said he was gonna do, he was elected because of it so let him do what he said he would do. Many people will complain just to complain. The way I see life, yesterday is gone, today is a new day so let’s get on with it. I do my very best everyday and I’ve taught my kids that way. My oldest is an accountant, my 2nd is in college and he plays college football and my youngest looks as though he will follow suit. My life is so good and full and I believe it’s cause my views are such. Look at the big picture, you might see something different and much better than just looking at 1 thing.
wow great comeback. fact is, most economic indicators (not the peper stock “market” are positive.
Fact. Anon is correct.
Anonymous, and you could try walking West until your hat floats.
“But it won’t be long before those actually footing the bill for this trade war (the American consumer) will see their bank accounts take a hit. ”
NOT TRUE. THE CHINESE YUAN IS PAYING THE PRICE AND SO WILL ITS EXPORT INDUSTRIES, THROWING TENS OF MILLIONS OF CHINESE WORKERS OUT OF A JOB. THE WHAT ??? WHO IS GOING TO BUY CHINESE PRODUCTS TO REPLACE THE AMERICAN CONSUMER ???
AMERICAN IMPORTERS CAN SOURCE FROM OTHER COUNTRIES FOR THEIR CONSUMERS, BUT CHINA CANNOT REPLACE THE AMERICAN CONSUMER !!!
“Factory activity and export orders were seen weakening across Asia last month, but analysts warned the worst was yet to come.”
THIS EVIDENCES MY POINTS, PERFECTLY. AND YES, THE WORST IS YET TO COME. IT WILL GET WORSE OF COURSE, MUCH WORST FOR CHINESE FACTORIES 🙂
““As everyone anticipates a further tariff hike…there is still a lot of front-loading going on. After January 1, we expect many trade and economic activities to tumble,” said Kevin Lai, senior economist at Daiwa Capital Markets.”
I called SHTF after the first of the year last months. Yeah, it’s in the archives. 🙂
Chinese yuan can afford to devalue, since the population receives a salary in yuan and buys goods in yuan. Therefore, he does not care about the dollar. And the US population buys in dollars and the higher the sanctions, the more expensive the goods for Americans. In China, 1.5 billion. population, it is 5 times more than in the US. Therefore, they have a huge market, and Americans are in debt, and even more expensive goods. How long will such a business last?
“Chinese yuan can afford to devalue, since the population receives a salary in yuan and buys goods in yuan.”
It is NOT true that when the yuan DEVALUES the Chinese can afford it. Devaluation represents INFLATION for Chinese workers & consumers; which is why Xi is trying to hold the yuan artificially high.
The yuan has already declined more than 15% since the TARIFFS were started, that will continue, and the BIG CRUNCH won’t happen to the Yuan until after the first of the year, all other things remaining the same.
If the dollar dropped in value by 15% in a few months everyone would be screaming “HYPERINFLATION !!! Worse, Chinese businesses are loaded with debt denominated in US Dollars. How are they going to repay those loans with CONFETTI ???
These companies will go bankrupt throwing tens of millions of Chinese out of work. The real estate market will crash further and there will be rioting in the streets. SHTF has come to China. 🙂
” … the US population buys in dollars and the higher the sanctions, the more expensive the goods for Americans. ”
FALSE. PATENTLY FALSE !!!
With TARIFFS on China it only means that CHINESE goods will be more expensive for Americans. Companies will source the products they need for their customers from other countries like Ukraine (25 to 1) or India (75 to 1) and a host of others, most likely in Central & South America & the Caribbean.
That is the Economic Principle of SUBSTITUTION and American companies are already planning to relocate the factories they need for the products they provide to Americans, back to the US or source the products from countries without TARIFFS on them.
China is TOAST !!! 🙂
My manufacturing company lost 70% of our sales between 1996 and 2001 thanks to Bill Clinton.
Its true that we have looked High and low for new customers and broached different industries to serve to regain some sales but our sales have in fact doubled since Donald Trump took office.
10% Tariff is not enough! the increase to 25% will be the straw that breaks the camel’s back and I expect a flood of old, and new customers looking for my part of manufacturing their product. They’re not going to like the way costs have gone up. But, that’s not in my control. They’re actually lucky I’m still here to serve. All my competitors didn’t make it!
I really do not agree with your opinion of the effect of Tariffs and how “the American Consumer” is going to suffer.
Consider that Savings from using China as a supplier was NEVER!!! passed on to the American Consumer.
If you understand economics then you know that a product will sell for what the market will bare and no more!
The higher costs of American manufacturing, I believe will result in a normalization of profit. Sorry about your bubbles but Cest la Vie!
“Consider that Savings from using China as a supplier was NEVER!!! passed on to the American Consumer.”
Very good point. The transfer of 70,000 factories and tens of million of American jobs was about enriching the Global Uber Rich Investment Class at the expense of, and by impoverishing the Middle Class, which is why tens of millions of Latinos were SIMULTANEOUSLY encouraged to invade the USA BY THE NWO to take American jobs and suppress American wages & salaries. It was also about creating a billion new consumers for the owners of the Means of Production to sell their products & services.
It was also about control. Poor people are easier to control, except in America where the masses still have guns, and do not require health care from the government. Thus the continuing attempt to justify confiscation of American Guns.
Google the “45 Goals of Communism” My Peeps, and the Eight Point Plan of Saul Alinsky, HRC mentor, and it all becomes as clear as the nose on the end of your face !!! 🙁
Oops!
Sorry Renegade. That rant wasn’t meant for you.
It was meant for the author.
I meant to write my own comment and pushed your reply button on accident.
TG
Makes one wonder where you live. I’ve noticed a couple of very exciting changes. Very few hispanics working in retail including very few working in landscaping. I’ve even seen a couple of women working for landscape companies – like the outdoor type of work! Actually we have such a shortage of hispanics that the ethnic restaurants are being forced into hiring Americans. What a novel concept.
So as far as my self centered self is concerned I haven’t seen too many changes. I am retired and doing fine. But for my fellow citizens I’ve noticed quite a number of very nice changes that have happened over the past couple years.
DR, I agree. No improvement even though Trump boasts about the economy daily. Last week Ivanka took credit and stated she single-handedly lowered the unemployment rate for women but with nothing to back up her dubious claim.
From now on I am not always going to vote party. I am voting for character because country over party.
BTW, good article MAC.
Of which we are aware, the money is printed without consideration or collateral, and the prices are all fixed. In theory (theoretically) any useful person or pastime could be afforded any standard of living.
There have been experiments in social credit, before. They reasoned that it was better to work, and they made up fake makework, to do. As it stands, now, most people’s jobs are turnkey, redundant, subsidized.
Wouldn’t some production quota make this seem more meaningful?
The 99% clearly couldn’t justify their existence in the free market.
Can’t they show us some materiel, and say, here, I made something?
Production standards can just as arbitrarily be placed much higher than in China.
I don’t expect to be hurt at all. Stopped buying China crap long time ago.
Just,
Tell us how you did that.
Could try ACE hardware for starters.
I don’t buy much. I’m retired. My vehicles are over 50 years old and I got spare parts in the garage. Don’t shop at Walmart. Fences around the house were installed 20 years ago (steel parts in the shed). Got enough clothes for the rest of my life. My wife gives me a run down every month and it has been two years since we bought anything other than food (and the garden is slicing that to nothing). When this here computer takes a dump, it will go the way of my old cell phone…which was not replaced. You don’t need near as much as you think to be happy.
Stop confusing your needs with your wants. Frankly you don’t need much and the less you own the happier you’ll be.
To avoid shoddy imports, you generally order-out, when there is no specialty shop in your immediate area. Or, you literally fabricate it, for yourself.
As consumers, we think of resort living, in a kind of social terrarium, where we exert ourselves, mentally, and free time is like a shopping vacation. I would have no problem, finding a constructive way to spend my time.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Behavioral_sink
http://the-void.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/walle-e-fat-people.jpg
How would you avoid behavioral sink. You might learn hobbies that resemble a cottage industry, or require some exertion.
There is no longer a convenience, when the food makes you feel chronically sick, and the parts are forever breaking.
The economy is honestly a joke. My paycheck is still a joke. Costs continue to rise. The truth is that Gov’t at all levels is a massive FAILURE and all they do is steal from the working American suckers…all a sham in reality. It has nothing to do with Trump either – been this way for a long, long time folks.
You should get a job, they pay more than welfare.
Anonymous, no one here is a damn freeloader.
Wanna bet?
People that talk like losers usually are losers, and losers are virtually always freeloaders to one degree or another and in one way or another.
The state of California has formally considered me an employer, for almost a decade. All I have to do is write you in.
Actually, quit trying to get jobs with bad, corporate actors, who can not uphold their end of the social bargain — like insane cat ladies and pyramid schemers. Make no effort to impress these people.
You are allowed to ask for deliverables and guarantees. Where is it, anonymous?
You mean them tariffs are gonna make the chrome plastic and shiny polyester cost more?
How am I gonna afford to get the boy a GI Joe with the Kung Fu Grip?
IMPEACH!!
I believe DK is right on this. AND Mac is biased towards Trump.
Put big tariffs on our main exports to China,
soy beans, corn, cotton, copper, aluminum, etc. Look for other countries to do business with.
A lot of countries don’t like the GM crops the U.S. exports and won’t take them. Some countries like China don’t care much. It will be tricky.
Are we all so stupid to think that Tariffs, Increased Interest Rates, Higher Stock Markets, so-on that the consumer will not be paying more?????? Don’t answer than, the answer is already written with overwhelming Debt that will NEVER be paid.
Big Christmas because Americans are optimistic about the future. Confidence is high unless something happens between now and then. 🙂
Maybe you could clarify your comment. there is no way to reap any benefits without some kind of pain. If NOTHING at all is done, NOTHING at all will change. Maybe it’s time for people to suck it up and not whine.
I quit buying CHINESE CRAP. I buy used older American things and fix them. All buying Of products not made in the USA does is export jobs and dollars from the American soil. So what if the Chinese don’t buy rice, soybeans ect. The Big agribusiness will have to sell their products here at a lower price. because of more supply and a lower demand. Things like grain fed meat will become lower cost. Without tarrifs In order for the USA manufacturing to be able to compete on a level playing field. The wages & cost of production of third world places will have to rize to the same level as it is in the USA. Or the USA wages and related cost of production will need to fall to third world shithole places standards. Now without any tariff and free trade which do you think will happen first? Mac your full of it. The Tariffs are necessary if the middle class blue collar manufacturing is ever going to have a fighting chance.
Old Guy if you own any MAGA merchandise you bought Made in China.
If you own any of the Trump family merchandise, not just MAGA stuff, you bought Made in China. Everything the Trumps produce, except for his one most recent MAGA cap, is Made in China. FYI, all of Ivanka’s women’s shoes, purses and clothing line is all Made in China too. Haha.
Orders from abroad aren’t just front loaded with tariffs. They’re front loaded with bank stir fees that were put in place with the WTO. Let’s talk ? about that. Shall we?
So all of these “business people” became filthy rich when most of the American jobs were shipped to Asia for peasant wages. That’s not monkey business, that’s F U business to this the American population.
A large part of this problem would be solved if people stopped trying to live above their means. Another idea is to be as self sufficient as possible and cut back on the consumerism. Our society spends a great deal of money on a great deal of shit they do not need and ends up in a landfill.
Free Trade unleashed on Americans beginning with Nixon opening trade with Red China and up until pre-Trump is the largest sustained tariff policy.
Why don’t you get this? Over and over the middle class has been annihilated AND the Millennials have insufficient jobs paying with adequate benefits what the middle class made in the eighties and nineties.
Inflation is the largest tariff in American history. Five bucks in 1974 equals $27.04 today! That is not sustainable. It’s why everything costs more and the pay was deliberately controlled by hiring twice the labor pool (men and women).
The globalist megacorporations want you to be impoverished. It’s economic implosion by design.
Trump is our best hope. Look at 500,000 new jobs, the lowest ethnic unemployment in 70 years!
Get a clue and a grip. If Hillary had won, we already would have been disarmed and broken.