He made it a real event. This Wednesday, April 2, Donald Trump is due to announce a series of customs taxes against his partners with great fanfare. The objective? “Release” his country of commercial relations which he deems too uneven. For the moment, the White House voluntarily maintains the vagueness on the magnitude of the measures and the number of countries concerned, but already, the European and Asian markets show a certain feverishness. On Monday, the CAC 40 had dropped by 1.6 % at the end, just like its Tokyo counterpart, the Nikkei 225, down 4 %. The business world holds its breath.
These measures which, according to him, must make America “the world industry champion”, will be added to a first wave of customs prices that entered into force in early March. This specifically aimed at steel and aluminum imported to the United States, now subject to a 25 %tax, regardless of the country of origin.
This is not the first time that Donald Trump specifically aims these materials: in 2018, the American president had already imposed a 25 % rate on the import of steel and 10 % on aluminum. And the consequences of this first tariff crusade on the American economy were quite harmful.
The risk that Donald Trump seems to minimize
Concretely, a State can impose customs taxes to encourage the relocation of industries to its territory or to increase the price of imported goods and make its national production more competitive. It is the arguments defended by Donald Trump who thus intends to “protect American critical industries.” What it seems to be minimizing for the moment is the risk that a customs tax is often followed by reciprocal taxes from the business partners targeted. Thus in 2018, China had raised its prices on American imports from 8 to 20.9 % while Europe had targeted metals and agricultural products imported from the United States.
According to Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), a Think Tank based in Washington, the taxes imposed in 2018 would have made it possible to create 1,000 jobs in the manufacture of steel in the United States. On the other hand, the increase in the prices of the material would have caused the disappearance of 75,000 jobs in other sectors whose steel is a raw material. For the CSIS, the same is likely to happen this year. In all, the steel industry represents 80,000 jobs, but the industries that need this material employ more than 12 million people. So many positions that could be directly threatened by an explosion in prices linked to customs prices.
During his first mandate, Donald Trump had ended up raising these prices for Canada and Mexico, thanks to a new trade agreement baptized “ACEUM”. Joe Biden had done the same for Europeans in 2021. It remains to be seen what his successor concocts. The 47th President of the United States planned to celebrate his “Liberation Day” at 4 p.m. local time (10 p.m. in Paris), from the Roseraie de la Maison Blanche.