Greg Ip says today that tariffs haven't reduced "trade links" with China much. But year-end trade figures were released today, and if you look at imports of goods from China it sure looks like they had an impact:
Ip says this is a bit of a mirage because imports from places like Mexico and Vietnam increased, and a lot of those imports consisted of inputs from China. And that seems to be the case:
This only goes through 2022, but it certainly suggests that overall exports from China to the rest of the world didn't suffer any from the Trump tariffs. They just sold stuff to other places, some of which then ended up in the US.
UPDATE: I modified the top chart to include a second line that includes so-called de minimus imports, small packages that aren't tracked and pay no tariffs. There is no firm estimate of the value of de minimus imports from China, but US Customs does track the number of packages. The Coalition for a Prosperous America estimates average package value at roughly $200, which allows us to make a ballpark guess at the total annual value of de minimus imports from China over the past few years.
The US trade balance is still terrible:
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/IEABC
It will take more than a few random tariffs to turn this around.
Yeah, moar Smoot-Hawley!
Is there any example anywhere of tariffs having their desired effect over a sustained period of time? And let's not forget it's consumers who end up paying for the tariffs, either in higher prices or limited choice.
There have always been tariffs on various things and this has in some cases protected jobs in the US. For example the famous "chicken tax" on light trucks has presumably prevented foreign competitors from taking over the pickup truck market. There are lots of jobs in the US making pickup trucks. US consumers seem to be able to afford the high prices of their gigantic trucks. The automobile industry has been protected in other ways, for example with bailouts. Outsourcing of jobs is undoubtedly one reason that real wages have scarcely improved over the last 50 years.
But that Trump and the Republican House could ever put together a rational trade strategy is inconceivable.
Kevin, I think you should give a larger value to the de minimus parcels. There are a lot of drugs and drug precursors coming in via those small boxes.
Unserious people. Those are thousands of Temu, Alibaba, Shein, and other direct-to-consumer packages maybe worth $30 each.