Has America stopped caring about Trump’s tariffs?
The issue has become another proxy for attitudes towards the US leader himself.
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Most foreign businesses have already spent months adapting to a world in which tariffs are a structural feature of American trade policy.
PHOTO: REUTERS
Cory Alpert
In time, US President Donald Trump’s latest tariffs imposing rates of 10 per cent to 12.5 per cent on 60 trading partners may prove uneventful. The surprise was less their introduction per se and more the timing: Coming less than five months before the US midterm elections, where affordability is emerging as a key issue, why would a sitting US president take unpopular action that risks hurting his party’s electoral chances?
For many countries and foreign businesses exporting to the US, while the announcement looks sweeping, in practice, it changes much less than the headlines suggest. Most foreign businesses have already spent months adapting to a world in which tariffs are a structural feature of American trade policy. Many imports were already subject to a 10 per cent levy under the temporary regime, after the US Supreme Court struck down earlier tariffs imposed via emergency powers.