Economists continue to criticize President-elect Donald Trump’s plan to massively use tariffseven in light of the president Joe BidenThe recent increase in Chinese tariffs from the first Trump administration.

Trump introduced a series of tariffs against China in 2018, touting their effective deterrent effect on Chinese competition, but just a year later, economists began discussing how “American consumers and businesses” have paid in full” for these customs duties.

Tariffs add a tax on an imported good: a “unit” or specific tariff is a tax added in the form of a fixed charge for each unit of an imported good, and an “ad valorem” tariff which adds a proportion of the value of the goods imported goods, Professor of Economics at the Rochester Institute of Technology, Amitrajeet A. Batabyal wrote in an editorial for News week.

Trump relied heavily on tariffs in his “trade war” with China during his first administration and threatened to renew this effort and expand it with a possible 10 percent tariff on all imports – or higher, with Chinese products facing duties of up to 60 percent.

The tariffs would apply under Section 301 of the U.S. Trade Act of 1974, which empowers America to investigate and respond to foreign trade practices deemed unfair or harmful to U.S. interests.

Democrats and economists alike have demonized Trump’s plan, repeatedly criticizing him, even during his first administration, for his use of tariffs. “a terribly inefficient way to generate income”, according to James Hines, professor of economics and law at the University of Michigan.

Despite these concerns, the The Biden administration has maintained Trump’s tariffs on China total $300 billion and some have even increased. The administration announced in September that it would add tariffs ranging from 7.5 to 100 percent on Chinese products such as solar cells, semiconductors, medical supplies, electric vehicles and lithium batteries. -ion.

Hines cautioned, however, that “just because both sides want to do something doesn’t mean it’s good.”

“The classic argument is that tariffs are a terribly inefficient way to raise revenue because they distort gross international trade. And that argument is still correct,” Hines said. News week during a telephone interview.

“There are different ways to think about what this argument says, but, you know, one of them is any goal that you think you’re pursuing with a tariff that you can always pursue better with another method,” Hines said . He suggested that the threat of tariffs against China should be used to pursue another goal, such as getting China to remove tariffs against the United States.

“Of course, they have a strong interest in protecting jobs and economic activity in the United States, absolutely 100 percent, but, again, the classic economic argument is that the best way to protect jobs in the United States is to not impose tariffs, and when you impose tariffs, it actually hurts jobs,” Hines said.

“There’s often a very strong political desire to impose tariffs, because the industries that you’re going to help…they don’t want to have to compete on a level playing field,” Hines continued. “They’ll always try to point to other aspects of competition that aren’t fair. That is, you know, maybe the other government is subsidizing industries or things like that, or our regulations are discouraging competition. industry, and you understand these arguments.”

Doug Holtz-Eakin, president of the American Action Forum and former director of the Congressional Budget Office during the second Bush administration, acknowledged the ineffectiveness of tariffs in bringing rival industrial powers to the negotiating table.

“Look, it’s an unfair trade practice,” Holtz-Eakin said. News week in a phone interview, noting that Trump implemented three different tranches of tariffs in an effort to “…bring China to the table and get them to negotiate.”

“The idea was for China to stop having such a large surplus with the United States and buy more American agricultural products, for example,” Hotlz-Eakin said. “When the Biden administration came to power, it kept China’s tariffs in place, even though it conducted a review and found that they were completely failed in their objectivewhich should lead China to change its behavior. »

He added: “What’s new in the Trump campaign platform is the notion of universal, across-the-board tariffs of 10 to 15 percent, and I think that’s where the economics profession is most unified in saying, ‘ This is not a good solution.” idea.”

“The 10 percent tariff is comparable in magnitude to the infamous Smoot-Hawley tariffs during the Great Depression,” he continued. “There are all kinds of reasons to be concerned about something that represents a $3 trillion tax on the economy over 10 years, and what kind of repercussions on international affairs it will have, what kind of retaliation that it will have.”

Elaine Dezenski, senior director and director of the Center on Economic and Financial Power at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD), argued that Trump would likely return to its targeted use rather than a basic universal tariff that would hit its trading partners and allies. the United States trusts.

“We want to go after China in a more specific way because we don’t want Chinese electric vehicles coming into the United States, and we don’t want their batteries going into our electric vehicles, and we will need more exclusions to do that, and perhaps very closely at the USMCA to make sure you know the appropriate safeguards are in place,” Dezenski said. News week.

She asserts that we have “anything but a free trade environment in the world, and that we must fight Chinese state subsidies and overproduction because we, along with other consumer markets, are essentially taking over all this additional production.

“This makes it difficult for us to create our own industries “We have to do to get out of this cycle, and meanwhile, you know, China is avoiding its own domestic reforms because it’s just trying to get out of its own failing economic cycle,” Dezenski said. “So this dynamic needs to change.”