The United States is surrounded since midnight last night by a tariff wall. Wild import taxes that Donald Trump has decreed to punish the countries with which his country has commercial deficit, have entered into force. Its application is a way in the global trade line of Global Yy trade, among the tariffs that begin to apply to the bulk of imports are 20% for the products of the European Union and nothing less than 104% for those of China, which also add up to previous rates that were already in force.
Trump has destroyed billion dollars with its commercial war, whose consequences do not seem calculated very well. Asian bags have opened on Wednesday again downward in the face of confirmation of the entry into force of the new fees. Oil and other raw materials also fall strongly. The president of the United States is now willing to carry out negotiations to reach “custom” agreements with each country, he said Wednesday at the White House. “These countries are kissing my ass,” he said later.
Investors feel a chill when the idea that predominates is that of climbing. This Tuesday, Wall Street opened up while messages about possible conversations and agreements multiplied by the Trump administration. However, as the day progressed, the inevitable entry into force of the encumbrances and the repetition by the White House that the taxes on Chinese imports will be 104% since Wednesday, the commercial war progresses and its damages are already being felt.
There is a mixture of grievances, dogmatism and opportunism in Trump’s commercial policy. In part, there is a somewhat absurd conviction that the growth of the global economy has harmed the United States, a country that is richer than ever and whose economy is the envy of the world, although the levels of inequality have been accentuated, encouraging the discomfort of broad layers of the population in an understandable way. On the other hand, there is the feeling that tariffs give Trump power to use them as a negotiation tool and obtain economic and non -economic concessions.
It is true that. The imports accelerated in the last section of 2024, partly to anticipate the United States bought goods for 3.29 billion dollars, with an import record from Mexico, and exported goods worth 2.08 billion. The commercial deficit stood at 1,212 billion dollars, compared to 1,062 billion 2023 and 1,173 billion 2022, the year in which the gap in the merchandise trade marked the previous record.
The imbalance partly explains Trump’s protectionist drive, which also criticizes the high tariffs that other countries impose on US products, as well as tariff barriers. However, Trump has not applied, as promised, reciprocal tariffs, but has arbitrarily calculated them depending on the commercial imbalance.
Last week, on the third day of the last semester that Trump baptized as “Liberation Day”, European Union (20%); China (34%); Japan (24%); Vietnam (46%); Taiwan (32%); India (26%); South Korea (25%); Thailand (36%); Switzerland (31%); Indonesia (32%); Brazil and the United Kingdom (10%), among them. The Chinese tariff joined another 20% place because from that country fentanyl precursors are exported. And as China replied with a 34% tariff, Trump approved on Tuesday other decree with an additional 50% to China. Thus, what has entered into force this midnight in the case of most Chinese imports are 104%tariffs. In addition, the Republican president has punished Beijing tripling from 30% to 90% tariffs to shipments of up to $ 800 of companies such as Temu and Shein, who have ceased to be exempt.
In search of agreements
Trump your willingness to negotiate agreements. The president talked about achieving 2,000 million dollars a day with tariffs, without being clear for when he wants to achieve that goal or how much he is currently being collected. “We are going very well,” he said after the bag has fallen again, so that he has erased more than five billion dollars of wealth in less than a week.
“We are doing very well, I call them custom agreements, not made in series. They are custom -to -measure agreements. Right now, Japan is flying here to make a deal. South Korea is flying here to make a deal, and others are flying here”, another of the occupations that Trump wants to enhance in the United States by giving facilities to the use of coal for the generation of electricity.
The president assured that his only problem is that he does not have enough staff to carry out the negotiations. He talked about using large private law firm, including some to whom he has been intimidating with custom decrees to make their lives impossible if they did not pay printedness with custom commitments. “We probably do. Let’s use them,” he said. “We have many countries that want to make deals. If I had told them about making those deals two years ago, or three years, or five years, they would have laughed at us. Now everyone is signing,” he added, although it is not known that no treatment has been signed yet.
“It will be something great, but we are thinking of those 2,000 million dollars a day. That is a lot of money, it is a lot of money, even in the coal business, it is a lot of money. And the United States will be very rich again, very soon. You will see that this will happen,” said the president.
“We have had conversations with many, many countries, more than 70, everyone wants to enter. Our problem is that we cannot see so many [países] So fast, but we have to do it, because, as you know, tariffs are in force and money is entering a level we had never seen before, and it will be great for us. It will be great for other countries. For many years, we have been scammed and mistreated by countries with the tariff situation, they have used tariffs against us. We do not use tariffs against them or in any way. (…) And now we are doing it. We have tariffs on cars. We have tariffs on wood, tariffs on steel and aluminum, ”he said.
Trump, however, continues to launch contradictory messages, perhaps because his negotiating position weakens if he is seen faltering in search of an agreement after the damage caused to the economy. Thus, a few hours later, in a beneficial gala of the Republican congressmen of the House of Representatives, he said that it was the other countries who wanted agreements: “We do not necessarily want to make a deal with them. We are happy as we are, winning 2,000 million dollars a day, but they want to make a deal with us,” he said.
Given the laughs and applause of his republican companions, dressed in tuxedo and a bow tie, he fell directly into the rudeness: “I tell you that these countries are calling us, kissing my ass. They die for making a deal: ‘Please, please, let’s make a deal, I will do anything, I will do anything, sir,” he mocked.
In addition, he insisted that he will soon impose high sector tariffs on the importation of pharmaceutical products, something that has been announcing weeks. “We are going to announce an important tariff on pharmaceutical products,” he said, without giving details about the planned tax. “Once we do it, they will run to our country, because we are the big market. The advantage we have over all is that we are the big market,” he added.
This type of erratic behavior, position changes, measures that are approved and suspected and of unexpected script turns have raised uncertainty and are braking spending and investments, apparently.
“I think that if I had not become president, I think this country would have had problems, as I had never had before,” Trump also said Tuesday, who inherited a thriving economy, which grew at a good pace, had managed to control inflation and had a historically low unemployment rate and now appears to the precipice of the recession as a consequence of Trump’s economic and commercial policy erratic.
The tariffs enter into force after Elon Musk, the richest man in the world and close ally of Trump, has said that Peter Navarro, one of the ideologues of that protectionism and Trump advisor in commercial matters, Navarro is one of those who has manifested against negotiations.
Pimco, the most important fixed -income active manager in the world, with 1.9 billion dollars under management, invites investors to abandon the illusion of rapid tariff concessions by Trump. Faced with the skeptics who think that current ads are a negotiating tactic and that relief will arrive soon, Pimco states that “the White House has remained challenging that tariffs are here to stay.” Its director of Public Policies, Libby Cantrill, believes that you do not have to become illusions and that the tariffs are not “posture”, Trump has been preaching on higher tariffs since, at least, 1987, and his team firmly believes in what is said. Although Pimco expects some type of transaction by Trump, he warns that “investors should think more in terms of months, not weeks.”
David Kohl, chief economist of Julius Baer, believes that “negotiations on trade agreements could be complicated and include additional reprisals and tariffs, but will ultimately culminate in agreements with lower commercial barriers than those announced last week.” “However, enormous uncertainty generates obstacles to global growth,” he adds.
