What if U.S. President Trump were to place tariffs on the entire $505 billion in goods that the U.S. imports from China?
At the moment, he has done so on $34 billion worth. China has forcefully retaliated, as has Canada, to Trump’s ill-targeted tariffs, which are destroying the farms and factory jobs of many Americans who voted for him.
But what if Trump made it worse? He would be interfering with the very thing that has kept Americans politically quiescent for generations: cheap stuff.
Trump doesn’t understand this. He doesn’t even understand the concept of trade. He thinks tariffs are a schoolyard fight in which someone ends up on the ground and someone struts away in triumph. But it’s more like a fight where both kids end up face down while blood sprays over every bystander. All are sent home, all are suspended. Again, I’ve been led into using a childish metaphor but that’s Trumpworld for you.
Many things would happen if Trump mass-tariffed trade with China. Just for starters, China, which has $1.2 trillion in Treasuries (debt securities issued by the U.S. Treasury to finance spending) could slow down on buying them, which would hike interest rates and squeeze U.S. spending on everything from the military to that new Space Force.
Even Republican Senator Orrin Hatch opposes Trump’s tariffs on China and allies like Canada and Mexico, so much so that he backs legislation to curb Trump’s trade authority.
That is … unusual.
Let’s look at the human angle of trade, a tale that involves Canadians almost as much as Americans. We worship the god of cheap.
What products does the average American buy? Everything, almost all made in China. Why? They’re cheap. Why so? Made of cheap materials, they’re built and assembled by people paid next to nothing by American standards. They are transported across oceans and skies without thought to the damaging effect on a warming planet. That will cost.
With the assistance of an excellent Washington Post graphic, I can explain the crisis by imagining Niagara Falls. Instead of water, envision Chinese goods. We see a thundering flow of adult clothing, athletic shoes and socks, cellphones, microwaves, greeting cards, fireworks, Christmas lights, leather handbags, furniture, lamps, strollers, swing sets, toys, video games, sporting goods, pretty much everything made of plastic, vehicles and vehicle parts, children’s clothing, underwear, air conditioners and so on. I have not mentioned heavy industry and its materials.
Getting stuff cheap performs several functions in the West. It keeps people - other than the rich and extreme rich – happy. It distracts them from the fact that their wages are stagnant and the goods are shoddy. It enables shopping as a drug and a means of satiation.
It also performs a social function, enabling working-class, middle-class or precariously employed people to look prosperous. If millennials (young and old) who can’t afford to buy houses manage to look as though they can, it is less socially painful. It takes the edge off their justified anger.
I have never figured out if this is a kindness or a con. If everyone dressed to match their shrinking pay - in threadbare hand-me-downs or clothing sewn at home – they would look less plausible in the human marketplace. Life would be tougher. Before globalization, people’s clothing signalled their economic station. Now, economic suffering is disguised.
Americans are able to shop cheaply at Walmart and in bulk at Costco. They buy huge houses and fill them with junk furniture. Flood and fire caused by climate change don’t hurt as much because cheap stuff can be easily replaced. Again, this soothes.
If tariffs damaged this system, Americans would march on Washington, D.C. with hammers. No, those come from China. Make that assault rifles.
Always follow the money. Always study the pattern of its flow, its destination and who it benefits. Are you better off than you were 10 years ago? If not, where did you spend what little money you had?
It may seem a small domestic question but in fact, it explains how trade matters have worked to the disadvantage of many people who thought they were in a genuine waterfall of wealth.
Heather Mallick is a national affairs writer.