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It takes more than a tariff wall to make US manufacturing great again
More substantive policies are needed. Washington must also fashion its trade deals to work with countries rather than against them.
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Tariffs can no longer be the centrepiece of the US strategy to bring manufacturing back home as the Trump administration imagined until recently, says the writer.
PHOTO: REUTERS
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After all the high drama and bluster on trade during US President Donald Trump’s first 100 days in office, US tariffs are headed down. The prospect of empty shelves on US stores, a bond market crisis and the threat of stagflation have brought home to Mr Trump and his fellow trade hawks that wide-ranging and draconian tariffs, especially on China, will backfire. We are entering a phase of trade detente.
But despite such small mercies, US tariffs will almost certainly not go back to the pre-Trump era.
