摘要：Inside a Target store in Rosemead, Los Angeles County, California, the United States, March 4, 2025. [Photo/Xinhua]

Inside a Target store in Rosemead, Los Angeles County, California, the United States, March 4, 2025. [Photo/Xinhua]

By William Jones

On Wednesday, U.S. President Donald Trump's 25 percent tariff on all steel and aluminum goods went into effect. Canada retaliated immediately with a 25 percent tax on more than $20 billion worth of U.S. products, including steel, computers and sports equipment. The EU responded with taxes on nearly $28 billion of U.S. products, which will go into effect on April 13.

Previously Trump slapped 25 percent tariffs on goods from the U.S.'s closest neighbors, Mexico and Canada. Besides, in addition to the tariffs he put on Chinese goods during his first administration, which remain to this day, he imposed two more rounds of tariffs in two months, adding up to at least an additional 20 percent.

To add to all this, the Trump tariff war widened with a blanket 25 percent tariff on all aluminum and steel imports, ostensibly to revive those industries domestically.

The supposition behind the Trump policy is that when tariffs raise the price of imported goods, they promote the establishment of domestic industries producing those same goods and thus, create more jobs for Americans. But tariffs can be a double-edged sword if used unwisely and can come back to injure those who levied them. In Trump's hands, they threaten to become a "weapon of mass destruction," damaging the U.S. economy and further.

Rearranging supply lines and investing in industries that have long since disappeared in the U.S., or have become terribly fragmented, cannot be accomplished overnight. It would take months or even years to restructure the supply chain for some products. With the U.S. consumer already facing significant inflation in basic goods, including food, the immediate effect of a tariff war will be soaring prices and unemployment.

Trump is aware that this will result in some pain for the U.S. consumer, but he assumes that tax cuts, more energy production and new foreign and other investment will quickly help reduce inflation and improve the life of the American worker. The question, however, is how much patience the U.S. consumer has, particularly those with low incomes who are already living on the brink of survival and who have largely provided the president with strong support, before they become discouraged by his policy.

In principle, Trump has four years to accomplish his task; but in practice, the time for showing results for the embattled consumer is much shorter. If this policy remains in place in the coming months, the president is likely to see public support dwindle, even among members of the Republican Congress, on whom he depends for implementing new legislation. If they feel that their election chances are at risk in next year's mid-term elections because of the tariff-driven austerity policy, they could abandon their support for the president's program.

There is already increasing concern from the business community, particularly those dependent on the global supply chain which is disrupted by the tariff policy. Trump had to delay the tariffs for the car industry, which was lobbying him heavily for a reprieve, by a month.

As the difficulties mount, Trump may be forced to make other concessions to his "scorched earth" tariff policy. If he begins to realize that there is serious trouble ahead of Republicans in the mid-term elections and that the long-suffering American consumer is reaching the end of their patience, he may well have to reverse the tariff gear in order to avoid an economic and political fall-out.

This includes tariffs on China, with which Trump has expressed a desire to establish a good working relationship. This will not happen unless there is a change of tone towards China, in practice as well as in words. A policy of "bullying" will not fly with China.

The president has also indicated that he would welcome investment from China in the United States. Yet the restrictions that are in place today make it well-nigh impossible for Chinese investors to do so.

The general atmosphere created by the China hawks around "the China question" has also led to a significant loss of many Chinese scholars and students who played an important role in the scientific area. If the intent is to revive science and technology in the U.S., cooperation with other nations, including China and Russia, must eventually be restored, and a more welcoming environment toward China and the Chinese established.

It is unlikely that Trump's hard-edged policies will help the U.S. turn the corner economically any time soon; the inflation will, therefore, continue to rise. The U.S. president has a limited time to show positive results for the people who elected him. This will, however, require a shift away from the "scorched earth" trade policy before Trump himself is "scorched" by it.

William Jones, a special commentator on current affairs for CGTN, is a former Washington bureau chief for EIR News Service and a non-resident fellow of the Chongyang Institute for Financial Studies, Renmin University of China.

来源：中国网