Trump Tariffs: Bad Math Led to Chaos with China? Economist Drops Bombshell
The world has been facing the consequences of U.S. President Donald Trump's tariff war that's going on in rampant mode. Trump didn't leave any country behind, and irrespective of its relationship with America, nations were slapped with tariffs. Trump marked Liberation Day and announced the percentage of reciprocal tariffs that his administration will be implementing in various countries.
Trump didn't spare even America's closest ally, Canada, and has spurred a worldwide trade war. Alongside Canada, China is one country that Trump is targeting with back-to-back tariffs. With the U.S. government refusing to back out of tariffs, other countries are looking to make trade deals with America so that they won't be severely affected in the future.
Recent reports have revealed that the Trump administration's initial calculations of the tariffs were completely incorrect, affecting the entire world. The government fundamentally misunderstood the work of economist Brent Neiman, whose research justified the White House's implementation of reciprocal tariffs.
Neiman wrote an op-ed in the New York Times saying that Trump's team "got it all very wrong." Neiman continued, "I disagree fundamentally with the government's trade policy and approach. However, even if we accept the government's trade policy and approach, our findings indicate a significant reduction in the calculated tariffs, potentially down to a quarter of their current size.
He asserted that if the White House had accurately calculated its trade plan and desired success, the 20 percent tariffs should have been reduced to 5 percent. The economist further pointed out that the Trade Office's claims of reciprocal tariff calculations eliminating trade deficits with each American partner are not a reasonable goal.
Neiman says that it is practically impossible to eliminate all trade deficits, but even if it is possible, reciprocal tariffs still won't work. The economist claimed that the Trump administration's justification of implementing tariffs based on selective picking of his and other economists' findings is wrong, and he hopes that the tariff scheme should be scrapped entirely.
