In conversations about the escalating trade war with China, President Trump likes to claim the United States is winning. He points out that tariff revenues, paid by China, are flowing full speed into the Treasury Department’s coffers, making the trade war good for America even in the short run.
Unfortunately, the president does not give quite the full picture.
First off, the tariff flow is not paid by China, except where government-owned enterprises are exporting goods to the United States and absorbing the cost of the tariff. Instead, the tariffs are paid by those U.S. consumers who continue to purchase higher-priced Chinese goods, and in some cases by Chinese firms that cut the price of their products so that their post-tariff price will not increase so much. In truth, the amount of tariff-driven revenue flowing to Treasury is an indication of the size of the burden borne by U.S. consumers. Should it make us happy for the burden to be growing?
That’s just one reason we’re not making money from the tariff program. Through mid-July, the Treasury had received $20.8 billion in tariff revenues on Chinese imports this year. Meanwhile, Trump has already obligated $28 billion to be paid to U.S. farmers to compensate partly for their loss of the Chinese market for agricultural goods. Of course, the revenue flow will increase starting in September when tariff coverage increases. But as things stand now, the tariff program is in the red.
There’s another interesting wrinkle to the story. In order to fund the payments to U.S. farmers spurred by Chinese retaliation for our tariffs, the federal government has to borrow money. After all, we have what seems like an addiction to debt. Guess what country is most likely to lend us the money to pay the farmers? I could give you three choices, but the first two wouldn’t matter. It’s China.
Now, to be fair, they’re merely the “most likely” lender. In May 2019, the Chinese were holding $1.11 trillion of the U.S. debt. Japan, the number two U.S. piggy bank, held just a tad less, at $1.10 trillion, so perhaps they’re lending us the money. But let’s face it: There are lots of people holding U.S. debt, so there’s no way of knowing exactly who is picking up the tab.
This said, neither country really wins a U.S.-China trade war. Yes, there are winners and losers, but when trade wars reduce each nation’s total economic activity, everyone taken together loses.
For example, among the winners today are Vietnamese producers of products made more competitive by the imposition of tariffs on Chinese goods. There are Brazilian farmers now shipping pork to China, replacing what was previously shipped from the United States. There are U.S. firms that find it easier to sell replacements for the higher-priced Chinese goods.
There are far more losers, like the Chinese firms that lost partial access to their largest export market and U.S.-located manufacturers like BMW that lost Chinese sales when retaliatory tariffs were imposed. But then, the largest group of losers are U.S. consumers—the forgotten men and women on tight budgets who face higher retail prices on goods they buy at Walmart, Target, DollarTree, Amazon, and Dollar General.
History teaches us that wealth and well-being increase when trade expands, even when some of players fail to play by the same rules. Interference with freedom to trade should require strong and detailed justification, initially and each time the interference increases.
Bruce Yandle is a distinguished adjunct fellow with the Mercatus Center at George Mason University and dean emeritus of the Clemson University College of Business and Behavioral Science.
