The US Capitol Hill newspaper article on October 10, original title: Tariffs against China failed economically, politically and legally
"Tariffs against China" are under review. Trump The 301 tariffs imposed on China during his administration have been extended to this day by the Biden administration. The Office of the United States Trade Representative is reviewing whether the tariff measure is "effective". There is no need to wait for the review results, the answer has always been clear: ineffective.
In any aspect, tariffs have caused serious damage to the US economy. Wholesalers, retailers and consumers in the United States paid the full price of tariffs. Trump once advocated that tariffs would be "zero transmission": prices in the United States will rise, prices in China will fall, but the amplitude will not reach the full amount of tariffs. And this did not happen. Why?
There is evidence that China will shift exports to third-party markets, so there is no need to change prices. In fact, China's exports to the world have not dropped, and the prices after being imposed are the same as before. The retail prices of affected goods have not changed. U.S. wholesalers and retailers bear the full cost of tariffs. Due to rising import costs, U.S. export competitiveness has also been hit.
The biggest rumor is that tariffs promote employment in manufacturing in the United States. Actually, it doesn't. Evidence shows that U.S. manufacturing jobs have dropped by more than 2% in industries that are most affected by tariffs and China's retaliation. Finally, there is a myth that tariffs generate more revenue than costs. It's pure nonsense. For its part, tariffs in 2018 sacrificed about 0.05% of the U.S. GDP (GDP). With the tariffs in 2019, economic losses soared to around 0.2% of GDP.
Facing all this evidence, those who support imposing tariffs on China like to play the last card, namely, 301 clause pulls Beijing to the negotiating table. This is also ridiculous. After Trump withdrew from the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPP), the procurement agreement included in Trump's first phase of the economic and trade agreement was embarrassing and did not "unscathed" American agricultural exporters. The United States and China have no second phase economic and trade agreement, and even expectations for the former are pale in comparison to what the TPP promises. To make matters worse, the United States was forced to defend these tariffs in World Trade Organization . This is a situation without a chance of winning. The U.S. Trade Representative ended up being creative but incredibly moved out “public ethics” to actively defend. Its argument is that Americans believe that Chinese uncompromising is morally disgusting. But this view is useless.
imposed tariffs on China economically, politically and legally. The evidence is obvious. It is puzzling that everyone's expectations are the opposite. We know that the views on " economic leverage " vary from person to person, but tariffs on China cannot overturn economic theory. We will redouble our efforts in class to check for omissions. Congress should revoke the power to impose tariffs in order to prevent the abuse of Article 301. (The authors Mark Busch and Daniel Trevorler are professors at Georgetown University in the United States and professors at the University of Toronto, Canada, respectively, translated by Chen Xin)
