President Trump might talk the Republican line on tax cuts, but when it comes to the taxes known as tariffs, he seems all to happy to play Taxer in Chief.
The tariffs are not some special breed of tax that doesn’t cost U.S. businesses money. Indeed, as new data from the group Tariffs Hurt the Heartland shows, in November 2018 businesses paid $2.7 billion in tariffs.
That’s quite a pretty penny, and substantially more than the $375 million paid in tariffs on the same objects in November 2017.
That uptick in tariff costs, of course, is the direct result of Trump’s various tariffs, including those related to steel protectionism and to getting tough on China.
Those increased tariff costs have real effects on the U.S. economy. Not only do businesses that import products or materials to the U.S. have to pay more, but those costs are also, for example, passed on to consumers and workers who are hurt by companies squeezed of profits. Worse, the tariffs distort trade relations and supply chains to the detriment of the Untied States in the long term, making temporary losses permanent.
And it’s not just U.S.-imposed tariffs that are hurting companies. In response to U.S. actions, other countries have imposed their own retaliatory tariffs targeting U.S. produced goods. Those tariffs resulted in slowing export growth in November, with exports of products subject to retaliatory tariffs falling by 37 percent.
Tariffs are taxes and costly ones at that. That $2.7 billion price tag should be a red flag that a trade war is an unacceptable burden.
