Consumers At The End Suffer From Import Tariffs and Trade war
Global trade has made a lot of countries rich but what is good for a country might not be good for its citizens but then we see a lot of countries impose tariffs on other countries that they had once had business with or are having business with. The US for instance imposed a 25% tariffs on Canada and Mexico and added an additional 10% on China, and in return Canada imposed 25% tariffs on US $155 billion goods.
While everyone expected that Trump was going to do it since he campaigned about it, it still came as a shock because everyone thought he was going to be diplomatic and looked for other ways to get it done. While the news of Canada slamming the US back with a 25% tariff hit the media, Justin Trudeau still made calls with Trump and talked about implementing $1.3 billion border plan. Which looks like Canada is about doing what the US wanted because the tariff on those country was placed so they increase border security.
The funny thing about tariffs is that it is the consumer that pays the more through their nostrils. This is because when the tariffs are imposed on importers, they share the money on the goods which is then paid by the consumers. For countries like the US which have Mexico being their highest importer because companies that were US based now have moved to Mexico to create plants so they can pay less fees to workers and gain more. With tariffs on these foreign companies, there will be increase in price, which will also cause people who are producing locally to increase their selling price as well and these leads to a win for the citizen who are producing.
https://media.freemalaysiatoday.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/bf1e80d7-us-china-reuters-150524.webp
Image Credit
The weapons for trade war are everywhere spanning from the food we eat, and the day to day things we use. We need to understand that as a consumer, we are probably consuming import and in a trade war, a country that export less has an advantage because when both countries are imposing tariffs on imports, the one not exporting a lot can outlast the other but at the end, the poor consumers suffer when there is a trade war.
Imposing Tariffs are not for the developed countries alone rather developing countries also impose tariffs on imports from different countries. Unlike developed countries that use theirs as a trade war, developing countries use tariffs to tax importation so they can make more money. At the end of it, both in developed and developing countries, the poor consumers suffer.