Or are they tariff threats instead? Still bad! From the FT:
Donald Trump has said he will hit the EU with tariffs, adding the bloc to a list of targets including Canada and Mexico and bringing the US to the brink of new trade wars with its biggest trading partners.
The US president acknowledged that the new tariffs could cause some market “disruption”, but claimed they would help the country close its trade deficits.
“The tariffs are going to make us very rich, and very strong,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office.
Hours before his plan for tariffs of 25 per cent on Canada and Mexico was due to take effect on February 1, Trump also widened his threat to include the EU, which he said had treated the US “very badly”.
There is not any good argument for doing this. The simplest hypothesis here is that Trump has mistaken views on trade economics, and is raising tariffs for the same reason that I, if I were President, would be trying to cut them.
“It’s not a negotiating tool,” Trump said. “It’s pure economic. We have big deficits with, as you know, with all three of them.”
Of course this is a sign that further bad things will happen. Let us hope that the courts can strike these down…
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