Silver Lining, weren’t you the one who was just emphasizing that the US has a negative trade balance? Why doesn’t that mean that we’ll be the one who has to buckle, since we’re apparently more dependant on the rest of the world than they are on us?
Longer term of course it hurts both the net importer and net exporter. But getting back to the point of the op the across the countries economic impacts will be moderate for at least a while. But immediate impact is often very unequally distributed within either side.
China’s system in particular, the news of today being what it is, is such that localized pain poses no threat to Xi’s ability to rule.
America’s?
Increased costs of certain imports because of tariffs will hurt certain emerging industries here and tariffs by China are chosen to focus the pain in politically meaningful ways. Much of what Trump and the GOP did with “tax reform” was aimed at hurting Blue states while sparing Red ones; the direct impact of Trumps tariffs and the responses by other governments are going to disproportionately hurt Red states and purple states that went Red.
While they voted for him I still feel bad for the people in these states.
As much as Trump envies the position of a Kim or a Xi, he is not in such a position of absolute power. Many other countries, like Canada, have populations that see this as an unprovoked attack on them, like a bombing of a port, flying a plane into a building, and are rallying around their leadership. I suspect some of the mindset of patriotic sacrifices when attacked will play out in many countries. Trump and the GOP will not benefit in that way. Agricultural communities, port cities (such as in Texas), will get hit and by November they will be asking themselves if they feel great again yet. Those who voted Trump may not vote for a Democratic representative or senator … but they likely won’t come out to vote for the GOP one either. It may play out in some reach districts.
One thing that has become increasingly apparent to me is that NAFTA is effectively dead. Even if it were renegotiated even if the sunset proposal were dropped, any businessman would be crazy to base his plans on it. In another post in another forum (GQ I think) it was explained how a business in New Brunswick, say might prefer to import steel from Maine than ship it from BC, while a business in Washington might prefer to import it from BC that ship from Maine. Well, they might do it short term, but they will be loathe to set up supply lines on the assumption that they will continue once they realize that the US can elect some asshole who will throw it out the window. Businessmen depend on dependability.